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XIL\)t Hitjers^itie §Literature ^tm& 



ESSAY ON 
WAREEN HASTINGS 

BY 

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

EDITED BY 

ALLAN ABBOTT 

HEAD OP THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT IN THE HORACE 

MANN HIGH SCHOOL, TEACHERS COLLEGE 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT, I9IO, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



©GI.A273U3? 



PEEPACE 

In attempting to edit ihes^ essays^for practical schoolroom 
use, I have treated with intentional incompleteness much that 
would be of importance to the historian, the Anglo-Indian, or 
the advanced student of rhetoric. Macaulay addressed him- 
self to none of these, but to the magazine-reading public ; a 
public which resemble schoolboys at least in this particular, 
that the first appeal of a new subject to them must be through 
its broad and striking features, particularly on the personal side ; 
in short, through human interest. 

The Notes are meant to supply only such explanations of 
Macaulay's allusions as will make clearer his main thought; 
the Introduction, to suggest a method of study directed toward 
acquaintance with Macaulay as a strong and lovable person- 
ality, and an appreciation of those elements of his style most 
worthy of imitation. 

I wish to acknowledge my especial indebtedness to Mr. 
H. C. Bowen's edition of Lord Clive and Professor J. V. 
Denny ^s edition of Warren Hastings, 

A. A. 



INTRODUCTION 
I 

THE LIFE OF MACAULAY 

MacaulAt's life, more than the life of almost any other 
man of letters, was such as to give his readers, as it undoubt- 
edly gave himself, great satisfaction. In the family, in public 
life, and in his writings, he had constantly before him certain 
well marked ideals. Throughout life, he lived up to these in 
a whole-hearted, ungrudging way ; and he had the reward of 
devoted friends, high political office, a well-earned fortune, 
and a large public to whom his writings, like Shakspere's or 
Scott's, are a chief source of their historical knowledge. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, 
in Leicestershire, England, October 25, 1800. His boyhood 
home always meant much to him. His father, Zachary Mac- 
aulay, was one of the earliest enthusiasts for abolishing slav- 
ery, and had spent some years as head of a colony for freed 
negroes on the African coast ; he was a zealous, though rather 
impractical man ; and long after Macaulay had risen to dis- 
tinction, his father's opinions had great weight with him. 
His mother, wise as she was loving, did not spoil him, or even 
appear to notice the remarkable talents he showed as a boy. 
His eight brothers and sisters made a merry household ; in- 
deed, one of the pleasantest things in Macaulay's life is his 
untiring devotion to them, and especially to his favorite sister 
Hannah. 

Of Macaulay's wonderful precociousness many stories are 
told. At the age of four, when a lady inquired how his legs 
felt after a scalding with hot coffee, he replied, 
illcoclous? " Thank you, madam, the agony is abated." When 
ness. .j-^g maid threw away some oyster shells with which he 

had marked off a corner of his playground, he exclaimed, " Cursed 
be Sally : for it is written, * Cursed is he that removeth his 
neighbor's landmark.' " Before he was eight, he undertook 
to write a universal history, from the Creation ; he memorized 



INTRODUCTION v 

Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, and most of Marmion, 
and started to write an imitation. This power of memorizing 
as rapidly as most people read remained with him; he was 
able in middle life to recite Paradise Lost throughout, and 
said that if The PilgriTn/s Progress should ever be completely 
lost, he would undertake to rewrite it from memory. This un- 
usual gift stood him in great stead both in his speeches in Par- 
liament and in his historical and literary writings. 

After a few years of schooling near home, Macaulay was 
sent to a private school in the village of Little Shelford, near 
Cambridge, to prepare for the University. The dean of one 
of the Cambridge colleges, who saw him at this time, wrote to 
his father, *^ Your lad is a fine fellow. He shall stand before 
kings ; he shall not stand before mean men." Whether his 
schoolmates regarded him so highly is, in spite of his brilliant 
powers, a question ; owing to marked clumsiness he lacked 
absolutely the ability to play any game ; and throughout life, 
though he was a great walker, he was unable to ride, or en- 
gage in any of the popular sports of Englishmen. Once, when 
at Windsor Castle, he was informed that a horse was at his 
disposal. " If . her majesty wishes to see me ride," he said, 
"she must order out an elephant." 

At the age of eighteen, he entered Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, where he found a more congenial atmosphere. Warm 
friends were won by his brilliant powers of conversa- At Cam- 
tion, of which the story is told that Macaulay and ^^^^^' 
his friend Austin, on a vacation visit, started at breakfast a 
college talk that held the rapt attention of all the guests the 
whole day, till dinner time. He was prominent in the famous 
Cambridge Union, the college debating club. Through a dis- 
like for mathematics, he failed of winning the highest Uni- 
versity honors ; but he wrote a prize essay, and in 1824 won a 
fellowship, the income of which would make him, as he said, 
" for seven years almost an independent man." 

This was the more welcome because his father's business 
affairs had of late years got into very bad condition. Macaulay 
not only assumed his father's debts, but devoted himself whole- 
heartedly for many years to the support of his sisters ; and 
his biographer says, " such was his high and simple nature that 
it may well be doubted whether it ever crossed his mind that 
to live wholly for others was a sacrifice at all." In gpite of 



vi INTRODUCTION 

his home-loving and affectionate nature, Macaulay never 
married ; it may well be that his devotion to his sisters, and 
later in life to their children, filled his heart completely. 

Macaulay' s personal appearance at this age is described as 
follows : " There came up a short, manly figure, marvelously 
upright, who had a bad neckcloth and one hand in 
appear- his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he had 
*°°®* little to boast, but in faces where there is an ex- 

pression of great power, or of great good humor, or both, you 
do not regret its absence." 

While still at college, Macaulay had been an ardent debater 
on political topics, and a contributor of essays and verse to 
Knight'' s Fictorial Magazine. It was along these two lines, 
politics and literature, that his life work was to run ; 
andUtera- for though called to the Bar in 1826, he never made 
^^^' the law a serious profession. Politics and litera- 

ture were united in his life-long connection with the Edin- 
burgh Review, beginning in 1825 with the publication of his 
famous Essay on Milton. This essay, brilliantly written and 
full of youthful enthusiasm, won him immediate and wide- 
spread fame. It has, in later years, brought on him severe 
criticism, on the grounds of partisanship, lack of comprehen- 
sion of the deeper qualities of poetry, and an irritating cock- 
sureness, — faults not uncommon in talented youth, and faults 
which Macaulay himself later acknowledged, though in spite 
of his great genius he was long in wholly outgrowing them. 
From this time on, Macaulay's articles on literary and histori- 
cal subjects were eagerly watched for ; they greatly increased 
the sale of the Review, and were so popular that by 1832 
American publishers had issued three unauthorized collections, 
and so forced Macaulay into republishing them in book form. 
These essays usually appeared as book reviews ; but Macaulay 
dismissed the book in a few paragraphs, and turned to a rapid, 
off-hand discussion of the subject on which the book was 
written. His aim was popular, rather than scholarly ; not to 
examine the subject with minute and careful criticism, but to 
present its striking features, and its moral values, in such a way 
as to win the reader's enthusiasm. For this popularizing of 
subjects too often treated dully, Macaulay was peculiarly fitted 
by his remarkable memory, his love of gossipy personal detail, 
and his picturesque, somewhat oratorical style. His strong 



INTRODUCTION vii 

Whig principles would sometimes lead him into unfairness, 
especially when writing on eighteenth-century events ; for this 
reason, we have sometimes to correct, by the study of less im- 
pulsive writers, the impression Macaulay gives us ; but we 
might never have heard of the subject at all, except for 
Macaulay's brilliant and enthusiastic essays. 

A politician, through and through, in the better sense of 
the word, Macaulay remained all his life, devoted sincerely to 
the Liberal principles that he believed to be for the good of 
his country. His long Parliamentary career began i 

by his nomination in 1830 by Lord Lansdowne to tary 
represent Calne, one of the " rotten boroughs '' *"®®'- 
where the influence of a single nobleman practically deter- 
mined the election. It is characteristic of Macaulay's political 
integrity that he threw himself heart and soul into the move- 
ment for the Eeform Bill, which was to abolish the very sys- 
tem by which he himself sat in Parliament. Another instance 
of his conscience in politics was in connection with the bill for 
freeing the West Indian slaves. The bill was not thorough 
enough to please the Abolitionists ; and Macaulay, rather than 
support the inadequate bill, and so injure the cause to which 
his father's life had been devoted, prepared to resign his office 
and give up all hopes of political preferment. His resignation, 
however, was not accepted ; indeed, this was but the beginning 
of a series of triumphs won by his stanchness of principle and 
his brilliancy in debate. His speeches for the Reform Bill 
took the house by storm ; people compared him to Fox, Burke, 
and other great orators of the past generation. Gladstone said 
of him, *' Whenever he rose to speak, it was a summons like a 
trumpet-call to fill the benches." 

This Parliamentary career was interrupted in 1834 by his 
appointment as legal adviser to the Supreme Council of India. 
The post was an important one, and brought him a 
large income, by which he was able to fulfill his ambi- 
tion of establishing his family in comfort. During his four 
years in India he reorganized the system of education, and pre- 
sided over a commission that rewrote the Penal Code. His 
favorite sister, Hannah, went to India with him, and was mar- 
ried there. His years in India gave him much of the pic- 
turesque knowledge of detail that makes his essays on Clive 
and Hastings so vivid. 



viii INTRODUCTION 

Eeturning to England in 1838, he found himself confronted 
Return to ^y ^^^^ private and public troubles. His father 
England. had died, after a trying period of failing health and 
eyesight. A bitter literary quarrel nearly involved him in a 
duel. The next few years were filled with intense political 
conflict, and he was called on to come to the support of a 
party that was losing public confidence. He entered the Cab- 
inet as Minister of War in 1839. But affairs had gone too far, 
and the Ministry was soon dissolved. Macaulay reentered 
Parliament from Edinburgh, and in a later administration be- 
came Paymaster General, but in 1847 he returned to private life. 
For some time, his chief interests had been literary rather 
than political. In 1842 he had published his always popular 
Lays of Ancient Borne. He had for years been planning a 
comprehensive history of England, from the reign of James II 
History of ^^ *^^ memory of men then living. This was to 
England. be no mere compilation of dry facts, but a narrative 
in which all the characters should be drawn as vividly as in a 
novel. Indeed Macaulay writes to a friend that he hopes his 
history may * * supersede the last fashionable novel on the table 
of young ladies." He had read and written much bearing on 
this period ; many of his essays had dealt with eighteenth- 
century subjects ; and he spared no pains to verify his impres- 
sions, by visiting, notebook in hand, the scene of each event, 
and by wading through countless biographies, journals, and 
volumes of letters* for a single telling sentence or paragraph. 
To write an extended history on the scale of a novel was too 
great a task, even for Macaulay's remarkable powers; such 
minute detail would have extended the work far beyond a 
man's lifetime. He was obliged to cut it down to a history 
of fifteen years ; for that period, it is a most interesting and 
enjoyable book. The interest is largely gained by the vivid- 
ness with which he writes of the people of those times ; he 
takes sides for or against them, with hearty enthusiasm, making 
you see them as you see people of your own day — with in- 
tense clearness, if without the calm judgment of strict histor- 
ical scholarship. 

Macaulay's last years were full of friendly affection and of 

public honor. The wide sale of his writings brought 
Last years. , . tt ^ 

him a generous income. He was given an honorary 

degree by Oxford, and was raised to the peerage under the title 



INTRODUCTION ix 

of Baron Macaulay. His bachelor quarters at the Albany, 
where he had lived for fifteen years, he now left for an attrac- 
tive villa called Holly Lodge. There was a spacious library, 
and a pleasant lawn surrounded by roses and shrubs, — hollies, 
hawthorns, and lilacs. Here he spent the remainder of his 
life, except for short trips, a regular autumn tour to the 
continent whenever he could have his old friend, Ellis, as a 
companion. Many stories are told of the sociable side of his 
nature, especially within the family; how he would take his 
sister's children on walks about London, with a story for every > 
street ; or play tiger with them, roaring from a den of news- 
papers behind the sofa. He still did a little writing, of 
which the most famous piece is the article on Johnson for the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica. He continued his life-long habit of 
reading, not merely of new books, but of old favorites which 
he read over and over. Failing health made him live more 
and more in retirement, and in 1859 he died, and was buried 
in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. 



II 

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDY OF MACAULAy's ESSAYS 

The first step to a proper understanding of any piece of 
writing is to have clearly in mind what the author was at- 
tempting to do. We are then in a position to discuss whether 
it was worth doing, whether the attempt succeeded, and, if so, 
to what its success is due. 

Macaulay's ostensible object was to review a book : Malcolm's 
Life of Clive, in one instance, and Gleig's Life of macaulav's 
Warren Hastings, in the other. But his real pur- aim. 
pose, he tells us in the first few paragraphs of the essay on Clive, 
was to popularize a subject, the British conquest of India, that, 
on account of the tedious style of previous writers, had hitherto 
been regarded as insipid or even distasteful. Something of 
his attitude toward his task we learn, too, from his letters to 
Napier, the editor of the Edinburgh Review. In July, 1839, 
he writes, " I mean to give you a life of Clive for October. 
The subject is a grand one, and admits of decorations and em- 
bellishments innumerable." In November of the following 



X INTRODUCTION 

year, " I see that a life of Warren Hastings is just coming out. 
I mark it for mine. I will try to make as interesting an arti- 
cle, though I fear not so flashy, as that on Clive.'' In Jan- 
uary, •' I hardly know a story so interesting, and of such vari- 
ous interest. And the central figure is in the highest degree 
striking and majestic. . . . This story has never been told as 
well as it deserves. Mill's account of Hastings' administration 
is indeed very able, — the ablest part, in my judgment, of his 
work, — but it is dry. ... I am not so vain as to think I 
can do it full justice ; but the success of my paper on Clive 
has emboldened me." Later, replying to criticism of the style 
of one of his historical essays as being too familiar and in- 
formal, he said, ^' I certainly should not, in regular history, use 
some of the phrases which you censure. But I do not consider 
a review of this sort as regular history. ... If you judge of 
it as you would judge of a regular history, your censure ought 
to go very much deeper than it does, and to be directed against 
the substance as well as against the diction." In brief, Macau- 
lay does not claim to be an original authority on history ; ac- 
cepting the standard works of the day, Orme and Mill, as he 
finds them, he retells their most efi'ective portions so as to in- 
terest the magazine-reading public. Modern historical research 
has shown that these historians were not so well informed or 
so impartial as Macaulay believed them to be, and that Macau- 
lay himself cared more for ''decorations and embellishments" 
than for absolute accuracy. But if we are studying the essays 
as appeals for popular interest, we can put aside the question of 
historical accuracy as not to our immediate purpose ; just as we 
put it aside in discussing the Iliad, or Macbeth, or Ivanhoe. 

The student should note in some detail how great a range of. 
knowledge Macaulay drew from ; not only the book he was 
Choice of reviewing, but the extensive histories of Orme and 
material. Mill, his own and his brother-in-law's^ personal ex- 
periences in India, and his astonishingly wide acquaintance 
with general history and literature, particularly of the eight- 
eenth century. By means of this, he is able at every turn to 
bring in a wealth of illustration and comparison, of descriptive 
detail and characterization, which would be bewildering if he 

1**1 have the advantage of being in hourly intercourse with Trevelyan, 
who is thoroughly acquainted with the languages, manners, and diplomacy 
of the Indian courts." (Letter to Napier, Jan. 11, 1841.) 



INTRODUCTION xi 

did not take pains always to explain to whom and what he al- 
luded. One member of the class may well take the range of 
Macaulay^s information as a subject for thorough investigation, 
on which to report to the class. From this great mass of mate- 
rial, what does Macaulay select, and why ? 

Here, again, one of Macaulay's letters will give us a clue. In 
the letter of Jan. 11, 1841, to Napier, already quoted, he said 
of Warren Hastings : " I am not quite sure that so vast a sub- 
ject may not bear two articles. The scene of the first would 
lie principally in India. The Rohilla war, the disputes of 
Hastings and his Council, the character of Francis, the death 
of Nuncomar, the rise and fall of the empire of Hyder, 
the seizure of Benares, and many other such interesting mat- 
ters, would furnish out such a paper. In the second, the 
scene would be changed to Westminster. There we should 
have the Coalition ; the Indian Bill ; the impeachment ; the char- 
acters of all the noted men of that time, from Burke, who man- 
aged the prosecution of Hastings, down to the wretched Tony 
Pasquin, who first defended and then libeled him." Mac- 
aulay thought of his subject, it would seem, as a series of 
splendid cartoons or figure-groups, to be connected by a unify- 
ing thread of historical narrative, and to be heightened and 
lighted up by every device of rhetoric. The most obvious way 
to begin the study of the essays, then, is to make a list of, or 
write at the top of the page, topical titles for the important 
sections of both essays. 

Besides — or before — studying these cartoons separately, 
the student should consider how Macaulay works General 
them together into a whole. Attempt to cut each Plan. 
essay up into five or six main divisions, as, for instance, in 
the Essay on Clive : — 

I. Preliminary information. 

1. Importance of the subject. 

2. Clive' s early life and appointment to India. 

3. The confused situation in India. 

a. Decline of the house of Tamerlane. 

b. Ambitions of the French. 

II. French power in the Carnatic broken, etc. 
At the beginning of each division, can you find paragraphs that 
block out the plan of the next division ? In such paragraphs, 
what hints does Macaulay throw out to sharpen curiosity, or to 



xii INTRODUCTION 

suggest the kind of judgment he wishes you to pass on people 
or events ? Is the transition from one important event to an- 
other clearly marked, and if so, by what means ? Can you find 
summaries at the end of the larger divisions ? At the end of 
each essay, what sort of impression does Macaulay wish to 
leave ? Are you to draw your own moral conclusions, or are 
they supplied ? 

Study any one of the specially striking scenes as you would a 
spirited bit of fiction. To what extent does Macaulay set his 
Sneclal stage, — do you see the event against a definite 
scenes. background ? Is this background peopled with by- 
standers and subordinates, or do the main characters appear 
alone ? How fully are the chief actors in the scene character- 
ized ? Does Macaulay get at their real motives, or does he 
describe them as their motives would appear to an outsider ? 
What steps does he take to secure swiftness of movement, sus- 
pense, climax ? Several pupils in a class may apply this scheme 
of study to difl'erent passages of interest, such as the Black 
Hole, the Siege of Plassey, the Execution of Nuncomar, the 
Trial of Hastings, and many others. 

Turning to the details of Macaulay's style, see if he had any 
systematic way of composing a paragraph. Attempt to give a 
Para- *^^^® ^^ every paragraph on any ten pages. Do you 

graphs. find that his paragraphs have, or lack, unity ? How 
many of these paragraphs contain, in their first line, a phrase 
of transition, or a connecting reference to the preceding para- 
graph ? In how many does the thought progress naturally, 
without interruption or violent break, from sentence to sen- 
tence ? In how many does the final sentence sum up, in a gen- 
• eral statement, the gist of the paragraph ? In how many does the 
last sentence add a picturesque detail or a striking illustration ? 

To what extent do Macaulay's sentences vary in length ? 
Does he seem more fond of short, direct sentences, or of com- 
plex ones, with carefully subordinated modifiers ? 
What tone does this give the essay ? Find examples 
of the following types of sentence : periodic ; partly periodic ; 
compound, with a series of independent parts parallel in 
structure. Find examples of antithesis. In a given ten pages, 
what proportion of the sentences begin with the subject ? Is 
this a high or a low proportion ? What proportion begin with 
a phrase of transition ? Sum up the characteristics of Macau- 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

lay's sentences. Do they, in the main, set off the subject 
sharply by itself, or in a more qualified way, in its relations to 
other things ? 

Is Macaulay's style literal or figurative ? Specific or general ? 
On any page, count the abstract words of Latin origin. Are 
they many or few ? Familiar or strange ? What 
tone do they give his style ? Where, and why, does Words. 
he introduce very unfamiliar words ? What pains does he take 
to make his literary and historical allusions easily understood ? 
While the class is studying these essays, it would be well 
to have individual members take certain topics on which to 
report to the class at the conclusion of the work. 
The following topics are suited to the interest and nl^^tfy 
abilities of pupils in the upper years of the high ''^ork. 
school : — 

Topics based on Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Macaulay : 
Macaulay in Parliament. 
Macaulay's Letters to his Sisters. 
Macaulay and the Edinburgh Review (Letters to Mac- 

vey Napier). 
Macaulay in India. 
Topics based on other reference books : 

The Trial of Hastings as described in Mme. d'Arblay's 

Diary. 
The Clive of Macaulay, compared with recent biographies 

(Malleson or Wilson). 
The Hastings of Macaulay, compared with recent biogra- 
phies (Lyall or Strachey). 
Browning's "Clive." 
Topics based on Macaulay's Writings : 
The Essay on Machiavelli. 
Civil Disabilities of the Jews. 
Frederick the Great. 
John Bunyan. 
Samuel Johnson. 
Madame d'Arblay. 
The Life and Writings of Addison. 
Horatius at the Bridge. 
Virginia. 
History of England, selected chapters. 



WAREEN HASTINGS 1 

The Edinburgh Eeview, October, 1841 

We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the 
wishes of our readers if, instead of minutely examining 
this book, we attempt to give, in a way necessarily hasty 
and imperfect, our own view of the life and character of 
Mr. Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not exactly 
that of the House of Commons which impeached him in 
1787 ; neither is it that of the House of Commons which 
uncovered and stood up to receive him in 1813. He had 
great qualities, and he rendered great services to the 
state. But to represent him as a man of stainless virtue 
is to mako him ridiculous; and from a regard for his 
memory, if from no other feeling, his friends would have 
done well to lend no countenance to such adulation. We 
believe that, if he were now living, he would have suffi- 
cient judgment and sufficient greatness of mind to wish 
to be shown as he was. He must have known that there 
were dark spots on his fame. He might also have felt 
with pride that the splendor of his fame would bear many 
spots. He would have wished posterity to have a like- 
ness of him, though an unfavorable likeness, rather than 
a daub at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither 
liim nor anybody else. "Paint me as I am," said Oliver 
Cromwell, while sitting to young Lely. "If you leave 
out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling." 
Even in such a trifle, the great Protector showed both 
his good sense and his magnanimity. He did not wish 

1 Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of 
Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M. A. 
3 vols. 8vo. London : 1841. 



96 WARREN HASTINGS 

all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost, 
in the vain attempt to give him the regular features and 
smooth blooming cheeks of the curl-pated minions of 
James the First. He was content that his face should 
go forth marked with all the blemishes which had been 
put on it by time, by war, by sleepless nights, by anxiety, 
perhaps by remorse; but with valor, policy, authority, 
and public care written in all its princely lines. If men 
truly great knew their own interest, it is thus that they 
would wish their minds to be portrayed. 

Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illus- 
trious race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree can 
be traced back to the great Danish sea-king, whose sails 
were long the terror of both coasts of the British Chan- 
nel, and who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, 
yielded at last to the valor and genius of Alfred. But 
the undoubted splendor of the line of Hastings needs no 
illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, 
in the fourteenth century, the coronet of Pembroke. 
From another branch sprang the renowned Chamberlain, 
the faithful adherent of the White Rose, whose fate has 
furnished so striking a theme both to poets and to his- 
torians. His family received from the Tudor s the earl- 
dom of Huntingdon, which, after long dispossession, was 
regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paral- 
leled in romance. 

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcester- 
shire, claimed to be considered as the heads of this dis- 
tinguished family. The main stock, indeed, prospered 
less than some of the younger shoots. But the Dayles- 
ford family, though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly 
considered, till, about two hundred years ago, it was 
overwhelmed by the great ruin of the civil war. The 
Hastings of that time was a zealous cavalier. He raised 
monev on his lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, 
joined the royal army, and, after spending half his pro- 
perty in the cause of King Charles, was glad to ransom 



WARREN HASTINGS 97 

himself by making over most of the remaining half to 
Speaker Lenthal. The old seat at Daylesford still re- 
mained in the family ; but it could no longer be kept up ; 
and in the following generation it was sold to a merchant 
of London. 

Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of 
Daylesford had presented his second son to the rectory of 
the parish in which the ancient residence of the family 
stood. The living was of little value ; and the situation 
of the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, was 
deplorable. He was constantly engaged in lawsuits about 
his tithes with the new lord of the manor, and was at 
length utterly ruined. His eldest son, Howard, a well 
conducted young man, obtained a place in the Customs. 
The second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless boy, married 
before he was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, and died 
in the West Indies, leaving to the care of his unfortunate 
father a little orphan, destined to strange and memorable 
vicissitudes of fortune. 

Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth of 
December, 1732. His mother died a few days later, and 
he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather. The 
child was early sent to the village school, where he 
learned his letters on the same bench with the sons of the 
peasantry. Nor did anything in his garb or fare indi- 
cate that his life was to take a widely different course 
from that of the young rustics with whom he studied and 
played. But no cloud could overcast the dawn of so 
much genius and so much ambition. The very plough- 
men observed, and long remembered, how kindly little 
Warren took to his book. The daily sight of the lands 
which his ancestors had possessed, and which had passed 
into the hands of strangers, filled his young brain with 
wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories of 
the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of their 
splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valor. 
On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven 



98 ^ WARREN HASTINGS 

years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows 
through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. 
There, as threescore and ten years later he told the tale, 
rose in his mind a scheme which, through all the turns of 
his eventful career, was never abandoned. He would re- 
cover the estate which had belonged to his fathers. He 
would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed 
in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect 
expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan 
with that calm but indomitable force of will which was 
the most striking peculiarity of his character. When, 
under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, 
his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legis- 
lation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long 
public life, so singularly checkered with good and evil, 
with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it 
was to Daylesford that he retired to die. 

When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard deter- 
mined to take charge of him, and to give him a liberal 
education. The boy went up to London, and was sent 
to a school at Newington, where he was well taught but 
ill fed. He always attributed the smallness of his stature 
to the hard and scanty fare of this seminary. At ten 
he was removed to Westminster school, then flourishing 
under the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his 
pupils affectionately called him, was one of the masters. 
Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, were 
among the students. With Cowper, Hastings formed a 
friendship which neither the lapse of time, nor a wide 
dissimilarity of opinions and pursuits, could v/hoUy dis- 
solve. It does not appear that they ever met after they 
had grown to manhood. But forty years later, when the 
voices of many great orators were crying for vengeance 
on the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded poet could 
image to himself Hastings the Governor-General only as 
the Hastings with whom he had rowed on the Thames 
and played in the cloister, and refused to believe that so 



WARREN HASTINGS 99 

good-tempered a fellow could have done anything very 
wrong. His own life had been spent in praying, musing, 
and rhyming among the water-lilies of the Ouse. He 
had preserved in no common measure the innocence of 
childhood. His spirit had indeed been severely tried, 
but not by temptations which impelled him to any gross 
violation of the rules of social morality. He had never 
been attacked by combinations of powerful and deadly 
enemies. He had never been compelled to make a choicp 
between innocence and greatness, between crime and 
ruin. Firmly as he held in theory the doctrine of human 
depravity, his habits were such that he was unable to 
conceive how far from the path of right even kind and 
noble natures may be hurried by the rage of conflict and 
the lust of dominion. 

Hastings had another associate at Westminster of 
whom we shall have occasion to make frequent mention, 
Elijah Impey. We know little about their school-days. 
But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, 
whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than 
usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to 
act as fag in the worst part of the prank. 

Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an 
excellent swimmer, boatman, and scholar. At fourteen 
he was first in the examination for the foundation. His 
name in gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory still 
attests his victory over many older competitors. He 
stayed two years longer at the school, and was looking 
forward to a studentship at Christ Church, when an event 
happened which changed the whole course of his life. 
Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his nephew to the 
care of a friend and distant relation, named Chiswick. 
This gentleman, though he did not absolutely refuse the 
charge, was desirous to rid himself of it as soon as possi- 
ble. Dr. Nichols made strong remonstrances against the 
cruelty of interrupting the studies of a youth who seemed 
likely to be one of the first scholars of the age. He even 



TOO WARREN HASTINGS 

offered to bear the expense of sending his favorite pupil 
to Oxford. But Mr. Chiswick was inflexible. He thought 
the years which had already been wasted on hexameters 
and pentameters quite sufficient. He had it in his power 
to obtain for the lad a writership in the service of the 
East India Company. Whether the young adventurer, 
when once shipped off, made a fortune, or died of a liver 
complaint, he equally ceased to be a burden to anybody. 
Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster 
school, and placed for a few months at a commercial 
academy, to study arithmetic and book-keeping. In 
January, 1750, a few days after he had completed his 
seventeenth year, he sailed for Bengal, and arrived at his 
destination in the October following. 

He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's 
office at Calcutta, and labored there during two years. 
Fort William was then a purely commercial settlement. 
In the south of India the encroaching policy of Dupleix 
had transformed the servants of the English Company, 
against their will, into diplomatists and generals. The 
war of the succession was raging in the Carnatic; and 
the tide had been suddenly turned against the French by 
the genius of young Robert Clive. But in Bengal the 
European settlers, at peace with the natives and with each 
other, were wholly occupied with ledgers and bills of 
lading. 

After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, 
Hastings was sent up the country to Cossimbazar, a town 
which lies on the Hoogley, about a mile from Moorsheda- 
bad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad a relation, if 
we may compare small things with great, such as the city 
of London bears to Westminster. Moorshedabad was 
the abode of the prince who, by an authority ostensibly 
derived from the Mogul, but really independent, ruled 
the three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. 
At Moorshedabad were the court, the haram, and the 
public offices. Cossimbazar was a port and a place of 



WARREN HASTINGS loi 

trade, renowned for the quantity and excellence of the 
silks which were sold in its marts, and constantly receiv- 
ing and sending forth fleets of richly laden barges. At 
this important point, the Company had established a 
small factory subordinate to that of Fort William. Here, 
during several years, Hastings was employed in making 
bargains for stuffs with native brokers. While he was 
thus engaged. Sura j ah Dowlah succeeded to the gov- 
ernment, and declared war against the English. The 
defenceless settlement of Cossimbazar, lying close to 
the tyrant's capital, was instantly seized. Hastings was 
sent a prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, in consequence of 
the humane intervention of the servants of the Dutch 
Company, was treated with indulgence. Meanwhile the 
Nabob marched on Calcutta; the governor and the com- 
mandant fled ; the town and citadel were taken, and most 
of the English prisoners perished in the Black Hole. 

In these events originated the greatness of Warren 
Hastings. The fugitive governor and his companions 
had taken refuge on the dreary islet of Fulda, near the 
mouth of the Hoogley. They were naturally desirous 
to obtain full information respecting the proceedings of 
the Nabob ; and no person seemed so likely to furnish it 
as Hastings, who was a prisoner at large in the immedi- 
ate neighborhood of the court. He thus became a diplo- 
matic agent, and soon established a high character for 
ability and resolution. The treason which at a later 
period was fatal to Surajah Dowlah was already in pro- 
gress; and Hastings was admitted to the deliberations 
of the conspirators. But the time for striking had not 
arrived. It was necessary to postpone the execution of 
the design; and Hastings, who was now in extreme peril, 
fled to Fulda. 

Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedition from 
Madras, commanded by Clive, appeared in the Hoogley. 
Warren, young, intrepid, and excited probably by the 
example of the Commander of the Forces, who, having 



I02 WARREN HASTINGS 

like himself been a mercantile agent of tlie Company, 
had been turned by public calamities into a soldier, 
determined to serve in the ranks. During the early 
operations of the war he carried a musket. But the 
quick eye of Clive soon perceived that the head of the 
young volunteer would be more useful than his arm. 
When, after the battle of Plassey, Meer Jaffier was pro- 
claimed Nabob of Bengal, Hastings was appointed to 
reside at the court of the new prince as agent for the 
Company. 

He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 1761, 
when he became a member of Council, and was conse- 
quently forced to reside at Calcutta. This was during 
the interval between Clive 's first and second administra- 
tion, an interval which has left on the fame of the East 
India Company a stain, not wholly effaced by many years 
of just and humane government. Mr. Vansittart, the 
Governor, was at the head of a new and anomalous 
empire. On the one side was a band of English func- 
tionaries, daring, intelligent, eager to be rich. On the 
other side was a great native population, helpless, timid, 
accustomed to crouch under oppression. To keep the 
stronger race from preying on the weaker was an under- 
taking which tasked to the utmost the talents and energy 
of Clive. Vansittart, with fair intentions, was a feeble 
and inefficient ruler. The master caste, as was natural, 
broke loose from all restraint ; and then was seen what 
we believe to be the most frightful of all spectacles, the 
strength of civilization without its mercy. To all other 
despotism there is a check, imperfect indeed, and liable 
to gross abuse, but still sufficient to preserve society 
from the last extreme of misery. A time comes when 
the evils of submission are obviously greater than those 
of resistance, when fear itself begets a sort of courage, 
when a convulsive burst of popular rage and despair 
warns tyrants not to presume too far on the patience of 
mankind. But against misgovernment such as then 



WARREN HASTINGS 103 

afflicted Bengal it was impossible to struggle. The supe- 
rior intelligence and energy of the dominant class made 
their power irresistible. A war of Bengalese against 
Englishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of 
men against demons. The only protection which the 
conquered could find was in the moderation, the clemency, 
the enlarged policy of the conquerors. That protection, 
at a later period, they found. But at first English power 
came among them unaccompanied by English morality. 
There was an interval between the time at which they 
became our subjects, and the time at which we began to 
reflect that we were bound to discharge towards them the 
duties of rulers. During that interval the business of a 
servant of the Company was simply to wring out of the 
natives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as 
speedily as possible, that he might return home before his 
constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry a peer's 
daughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to 
give balls in St. James's Square. Of the conduct of 
Hastings at this time little is known ; but the little that 
is known, and the circumstance that little is known, must 
be considered as honorable to him. He could not protect 
the natives : all that he could do was to abstain from 
plundering and oppressing them ; and this he appears to 
have done. It is certain that at this time he continued 
poor ; and it is equally certain, that by cruelty and dis- 
honesty he might easily have become rich. It is certain 
that he was never charged with having borne a share in 
the worst abuses which then prevailed; and it is almost 
equally certain that, if he had borne a share in those 
abuses, the able and bitter enemies who afterwards per- 
secuted him would not have failed to discover and to 
proclaim his guilt. The keen, severe, and even male- 
volent scrutiny to which his whole public life was sub- 
jected, a scrutiny unparalleled, as we believe, in the his- 
tory of mankind, is in one respect advantageous to his 
reputation. It brought many lamentable blemishes to 



I04 WARREN HASTINGS 

light; but it entitles him to be considered pure from 
every blemish which has not been brought to light. 

The truth is that the temptations to which so many- 
English functionaries yielded in the time of Mr. Vansit- 
tart were not temptations addressed to the ruling passions 
of Warren Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecun- 
iary transactions; but he was neither sordid nor rapa- 
cious. He was far too enlightened a man to look on a 
great empire merely as a buccaneer would look on a 
galleon. Had his heart been much worse than it was, 
his understanding would have preserved him from that 
extremity of baseness. He was an unscrupulous, perhaps 
an unprincipled statesman; but still he was a statesman, 
and not a freebooter. 

In 1764 Hastings returned to England. He had realized 
only a very moderate fortune ; and that moderate fortune 
was soon reduced to nothing, partly by his praiseworthy 
liberality, and partly by his mismanagement. Towards 
his relations he appears to have acted very generously. 
The greater part of his savings he left in Bengal, hoping 
probably to obtain the high usury of India. But high 
usury and bad security generally go together; and Hast- 
ings lost both interest and principal. 

He remained four years in England. Of his life at 
this time very little is known. But it has been asserted, 
and is highly probable, that liberal studies and the society 
of men of letters occupied a great part of his time. It is 
to be remembered to his honor, that in days when the 
languages of the East were regarded by other servants of 
the Company merely as the means of communicating with 
weavers and money-changers, his enlarged and accom- 
plished mind sought in Asiatic learning for new forms of 
intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of govern- 
ment and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have 
paid much attention to departments of knowledge which 
lie out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate 
the value of his favorite studies. He conceived that the 



WARREN HASTINGS 105 

cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be 
made a part of the liberal education of an English gen- 
tleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is 
said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental 
learning had never, since the revival of letters, been 
wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the institution 
which he contemplated. An endowment was expected 
from the munificence of the Company; and professors 
thoroughly competent to interpret Hafiz and Ferdusi were 
to be engaged in the East. Hastings called on Johnson, 
with the hope, as it should seem, of interesting in this 
project a man who enjoyed the highest literary reputation, 
and who was particularly connected with Oxford. The 
interview appears to have left on Johnson's mind a most 
favorable impression of the talents and attainments of his 
visitor. Long after, when Hastings was ruling the im- 
mense population of British India, the old philosopher 
wrote to him, and referred in the most courtly terms, 
though with great dignity, to their short but agreeable 
intercourse. 

Hastings soon began to look again towards India. He 
had little to attach him to England ; and his pecuniary 
embarrassments were great. He solicited his old mas- 
ters the Directors for employment. They acceded to his 
request, with high compliments both to his abilities and 
to his integrity, and appointed him a Member of Council 
at Madras. It would be unjust not to mention that, 
though forced to borrow money for his outfit, he did not 
withdraw any portion of the sum which he had appropri- 
ated to the relief of his distressed relations. In the 
spring of 1769 he embarked on board of the Duke of 
Grafton, and commenced a voyage distinguished by inci- 
dents which might furnish matter for a novel. 

Among the passengers in the Duke of Grafton was a 
German of the name of Imhoff. He called himself a 
baron; but he was in distressed circumstances, and was 
going out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the hope of 



io6 WARREN HASTINGS 

picking up some of the pagodas which were then lightly 
got and as lightly spent by the English in India. The 
baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have 
somewhere read, of Archangel. This young woman who, 
born under the Arctic circle, was destined to play the 
part of a Queen under the tropic of Cancer, had an 
agreeable person, a cultivated mind, and manners in the 
highest degree engaging. She despised her husband 
heartily, and, as the story which we have to tell suffi- 
ciently proves, not without reason. She was interested 
by the conversation and flattered by the attentions of 
Hastings. The situation was indeed perilous. No place 
is so propitious to the formation either of close friend- 
ships or of deadly enmities as an Indiaman. There are 
very few people who do not find a voyage which lasts 
several months insupportably dull. Anything is welcome 
which may break that long monotony, a sail, a shark, an 
albatross, a man overboard. Most passengers find some 
resource in eating twice as many meals as on land. But 
the great devices for killing the time are quarrelling and 
flirting. The facilities for both these exciting pursuits 
are great. The inmates of the ship are thrown together 
far more than in any country-seat or boarding-house. 
None can escape from the rest except by imprisoning 
himself in a cell in which he can hardly turn. All food, 
all exercise, is taken in company. Ceremony is to a 
great extent banished. It is every day in the power of a 
mischievous person to inflict innumerable annoyances; it 
is every day in the power of an amiable person to confer 
little services. It not seldom happens that serious dis- 
tress and danger call forth in genuine beauty and deform- 
ity heroic virtues and abject vices which, in the ordinary 
intercourse of good society, might remain during many 
years unknown even to intimate associates. Under such 
circumstances met Warren Hastings and the Baroness 
Imhoff, two persons whose accomplishments would have 
attracted notice in any court of Europe. The gentleman 



WARREN HASTINGS 107 

had no domestic ties. The lady was tied to a husband 
for whom she had no regard, and who had no regard for 
his own honor. An attachment sprang up, which was 
soon strengthened by events such as could hardly have 
occurred on land. Hastings fell ill. The baroness 
nursed him with womanly tenderness, gave him his medi- 
cines with her own hand, and even sat up in his cabin 
wliile he slept. Long before the Duke of Grafton reached 
Madras, Hastings was in love. But his love was of a 
most characteristic description. Like his hatred, like 
his ambition, like all his passions, it was strong, but not 
impetuous. It was calm, deep, earnest, patient of delay, 
unconquerable by time. Imhoff was called into council 
by his wife and his wife's lover. It was arranged that 
the baroness should institute a suit for a divorce in the 
courts of Franconia, that the baron should afford every 
facility to the proceeding, and that, during the years 
which might elapse before the sentence should be pro- 
nounced, they should continue to live together. It was 
also agreed that Hastings should bestow some very sub- 
stantial marks of gratitude on the complaisant husband, 
and should, when the marriage was dissolved, make the 
lady his wife, and adopt the children whom she had 
already borne to Imhoff. 

At Madras, Hastings found the trade of the Company 
in a very disorganized state. His own tastes would 
have led him rather to political than to commercial pur- 
suits ; but he knew that the favor of his employers de- 
pended chiefly on their dividends, and that their divi- 
dends depended chiefly on the investment. He therefore, 
with great judgment, determined to apply his vigorous 
mind for a time to this department of business, which had 
been much neglected, since the servants of the Company 
had ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors and 
negotiators. 

In a very few months he effected an important reform. 
The Directors notified to him their high approbation, and 



io8 WARREN HASTINGS 

were so mucli pleased with his conduct that they deter- 
mined to place him at the head of the government of 
Bengal. Early in 1772 he quitted Fort St. George for 
his new post. The Imhoffs, who were still man and wife, 
accompanied him, and lived at Calcutta on the same plan 
which they had already followed during more than two 
years. 

When Hastings took his seat at the head of the coun- 
cil board, Bengal was still governed according to the 
system which Clive had devised, — a system which was, 
perhaps, skilfully contrived for the purpose of facilitat- 
ing and concealing a great revolution, but which, when 
that revolution was complete and irrevocable, could pro- 
duce nothing but inconvenience. There were two gov- 
ernments, the real and the ostensible. The supreme 
power belonged to the Company, and was in truth the 
most despotic power that can be conceived. The only 
restraint on the English masters of the country was that 
which their own justice and humanity imposed on them. 
There was no constitutional check on their will, and 
resistance to them was utterly hopeless. 

But, though thus absolute in reality, the English had 
not yet assumed the style of sovereignty. They held 
their territories as vassals of the throne of Delhi ; they 
raised their revenues as collectors appointed by the im- 
perial commission; their public seal was inscribed with 
the imperial titles; and their mint struck only the 
imperial coin. 

There was still a nabob of Bengal, who stood to the 
English rulers of his country in the same relation in 
which Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the last Mero- 
vingians to Charles Martel and Pepin. He lived at 
Moorshedabad, surrounded by princely magnificence. He 
was approached with outward marks of reverence, and 
his name was used in public instruments. But in the 
government of the country he had less real share than 
the youngest writer or cadet in the Company's service. 



WARREN HASTINGS 109 

Tlie Englisli council which represented the Company 
at Calcutta was constituted on a very different plan from 
that which has since been adopted. At present the Gov- 
ernor is, as to all executive measures, absolute. He can 
declare war, conclude peace, appoint public functionaries 
or remove them, in opposition to the unanimous sense of 
those who sit with him in council. They are, indeed, 
entitled to know all that is done, to discuss all that is 
done, to advise, to remonstrate, to send protests to Eng^ 
land. But it is with the Governor that the supreme 
power resides, and on him that the whole responsibility 
rests. This system, which was introduced by Mr. Pitt 
and Mr. Dundas in spite of the strenuous opposition of 
Mr. Burke, we conceive to be on the whole the best that 
was ever devised for the government of a country where 
no materials can be found for a representative constitu- 
tion. In the time of Hastings the Governor had only one 
vote in council, and, in case of an equal division, a cast- 
ing vote. It therefore happened not unfrequently that 
he was overruled on the gravest questions; and it was 
possible that he might be wholly excluded, for years to- 
gether, from the real direction of public affairs. 

The English functionaries at Fort William had as yet 
paid little or no attention to the internal government of 
Bengal. The only branch of politics about which they 
much busied themselves was negotiation with the native 
princes. The police, the administration of justice, the 
details of the collection of revenue, were almost entirely 
neglected. We may remark that the phraseology of the 
Company's servants still bears the traces of this state of 
things. To this day they always use the word "politi- 
cal" as synonymous with "diplomatic." We could name 
that gentleman still living, who was described by the 
highest authority as an invaluable public servant, emi- 
nently fit to be at the head of the internal administration 
of a whole presidency, but unfortunately quite ignorant 
of all political business. 



no WARREN HASTINGS 

The internal government of Bengal the English rulers 
delegated to a great native minister, who was stationed 
at Moorshedabad. All military affairs, and with the 
exception of what pertains to mere ceremonial all foreign 
affairs, were withdrawn from his control; but the other 
departments of the administration were entirely confided 
to him. His own stipend amounted to near a hundred 
thousand pounds sterling a year. The personal allow- 
ance of the Nabob, amounting to more than three hundred 
thousand pounds a year, passed through the minister's 
hands, and was, to a great extent, at his disposal. The 
collection of the revenue, the administration of justice, 
the maintenance of order, were left to this high function- 
ary ; and for the exercise of his immense power he was 
responsible to none but the British masters of the country. 

A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid was 
naturally an object of ambition to the ablest and most 
powerful natives. Clive had found it difficult to decide 
between conflicting pretensions. Two candidates stood 
out prominently from the crowd, each of them the repre- 
sentative of a race and of a religion. 

One of these was Mahommed Eeza Khan, a Mussul- 
man of Persian extraction, able, active, religious after the 
fashion of his people, and highly esteemed by them. In 
England he might perhaps have been regarded as a cor- 
rupt and greedy politician. But, tried by the lower 
standard of Indian morality, he might be considered as a 
man of integrity and honor. 

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name 
has, by a terrible and melancholy event, been inseparably 
associated with that of Warren Hastings, the Maharajah 
Nuncomar. This man had played an important part in 
all the revolutions which, since the time of Surajah Dow- 
lah, had taken place in Bengal. To the consideration 
which in that country belongs to high and pure caste, he 
added the weight which is derived from wealth, talents, 
and experience. Of his moral character it is difficult to 



WARREN HASTINGS iii 

give a notion to those who are acquainted with human 
nature only as it appears in our island. What the Italian 
is to the Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, 
what the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was Nun- 
comar to other Bengalese. The physical organization of 
the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in 
a constant vapor bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his 
limbs delicate, his movements languid. During many 
ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and 
more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, 
are qualities to which his constitution and his situation 
are equally unfavorable. His mind bears a singular 
analogy to his body. It is weak even to helplessness, for 
purposes of manly resistance; but its suppleness and its 
tact move the children of sterner climates to admiration 
not unmingled with contempt. All those arts which are 
the natural defence of the weak are more familiar to this 
subtle race than to the Ionian of the time of Juvenal, or 
to the Jew of the dark ages. What the horns are to the 
buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is 
to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, 
is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, 
smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial false- 
hood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offen- 
sive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. 
All those millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies 
of the Company. But as usurers, as money-changers, as 
sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can 
bear a comparison with them. With all his softness, the 
Bengalee is by no means placable in his enmities or prone 
to pity. The pertinacity with which he adheres to his 
purposes yields only to the immediate pressure of fear. 
Nor does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often 
wanting to his masters. To inevitable evils he is some- 
times found to oppose a passive fortitude, such as the 
Stoics attributed to their ideal sage. A European war- 
rior who rushes on a battery of cannon with a loud hurrah 



112 WARREN HASTINGS 

will sometimes shriek under the surgeon's knife, and fall 
into an agony of despair at the sentence of death. But 
the Bengalee who would see his country overrun, his 
house laid in ashes, his children murdered or dishonored, 
without having the spirit to strike one blow, has yet been 
known to endure torture with the firmness of Mucins, and 
to mount the scaffold with the steady step and even pulse 
of Algernon Sydney. 

In Nuncomar the national character was strongly and 
with exaggeration personified. The Company's servants 
had repeatedly detected him in the most criminal in- 
trigues. On one occasion he brought a false charge 
against another Hindoo, and tried to substantiate it by 
producing forged documents. On another occasion it 
was discovered that, while professing the strongest at- 
tachment to the English, he was engaged in several con- 
spiracies against them, and in particular that he was the 
medium of a correspondence between the court of Delhi 
and the French authorities in the Carnatic. For these 
and similar practices he had been long detained in con- 
finement. But his talents and influence had not only 
procured his liberation, but had obtained for him a cer- 
tain degree of consideration even among the British rulers 
of his country. 

Clive was extremely unwilling to place a Mussulman 
at the head of the administration of Bengal. On the 
other hand, he could not bring himself to confer immense 
power on a man to whom every sort of villainy had 
repeatedly been brought home. Therefore, though the 
Nabob, over whom Nuncomar had by intrigue acquired 
great influence, begged that the artful Hindoo might be 
entrusted with the government, Clive, after some hesita- 
tion, decided honestly and wisely in favor of Mahommed 
Reza Khan. When Hastings became Governor, Ma- 
hommed Reza Khan had held power seven years. An 
infant son of Meer Jaffier was now nabob; and the 
guardianship of the young prince's person had been con- 
fided to the minister. 



WARREN HASTINGS 113 

Nuncomar, stimulated at once by cupidity and malice, 
had been constantly attempting to hurt his successful 
rival. This was not difficult. The revenues of Bengal, 
under the administration established by Clive, did not 
yield such a surplus as had been anticipated by the Com- 
pany; for at that time, the most absurd notions were 
entertained in England respecting the wealth of India. 
Palaces of porphyry, hung with the richest brocade, heaps 
of pearls and diamonds, vaults from which pagodas and 
gold mohurs were measured out by the bushel, filled the 
imagination even of men of business. Nobody seemed to 
be aware of what nevertheless was most undoubtedly the 
truth, that India was a poorer country than countries 
which in Europe are reckoned poor, than Ireland, for 
example, or than Portugal. It was confidently believed 
by lords of the treasury and members for the city that 
Bengal would not only defray its own charges, but would 
afford an increased dividend to the proprietors of India 
stock, and large relief to the English finances. These 
absurd expectations were disappointed ; and the directors, 
naturally enough, chose to attribute the disappointment 
rather to the mismanagement of Mahommed Reza Khan 
than to their own ignorance of the country entrusted to 
their care. They were confirmed in their error by the 
agents of Nuncomar; for Nuncomar had agents even in 
Leadenhall Street. Soon after Hastings reached Cal- 
cutta, he received a letter addressed by the Court of 
Directors, not to the council generally, but to himself in 
particular. He was directed to remove Mahommed Eeza 
Khan, to arrest him, together with all his family and all 
his partisans, and to institute a strict inquiry into the 
whole administration of the province. It was added that 
the Governor would do well to avail himself of the assist- 
ance of Nuncomar in the investigation. The vices of 
Nuncomar were acknowledged. But even from his vices, 
it was said, much advantage might at such a conjuncture 
be derived; and, though he could not safely be trusted, 



114 WARREN HASTINGS 

it miglit still be proper to encourage him by hopes of 
reward. 

The Governor bore no good will to Nuncomar. Many- 
years before, they had known each other at Moorsheda- 
bad ; and then a quarrel had risen between them which 
all the authority of their superiors could hardly compose. 
Widely as they differed in most points, they resembled 
each othef in this, that both were men of unforgiving 
natures. To Mahommed Reza Khan, on the other hand, 
Hastings had no feelings of hostility. Nevertheless he 
proceeded to execute the instructions of the Company with 
an alacrity which he never showed except when instruc- 
tions were in perfect conformity with his own views. 
He had, wisely, as we think, determined to get rid of the 
system of double government in Bengal. The orders of 
the Directors furnished him with the means of effecting 
his purpose, and dispensed him from the necessity of dis- 
cussing the matter with his council. He took his mea- 
sures with his usual vigor and dexterity. At midnight, 
the palace of Mahommed Reza Khan at Moorshedabad 
was surrounded by a battalion of sepoys. The minister 
was roused from his slumbers, and informed that he was 
a prisoner. With the Mussulman gravity, he bent his 
head and submitted himself to the will of God. He fell 
not alone. A chief named Schitab Roy had been en- 
trusted with the government of Bahar. His valor and 
his attachment to the English had more than once been 
signally proved. On that memorable day on which the 
people of Patna saw from their walls the whole army of 
the Mogul scattered by the little band of Captain Knox, 
the voice of the British conquerors assigned the palm of 
gallantry to the brave Asiatic. "I never," said Knox, 
when he introduced Schitab Roy, covered with blood and 
dust, to the English functionaries assembled in the fac- 
tory, — "I never saw a native fight so before." Schitab 
Roy was involved in the ruin of Mahommed Reza Khan, 
was removed from office, and was placed under arrest. 



WARREN HASTINGS 115 

The members of the council received no intimation of 
these measures till the prisoners were on their road to 
Calcutta. 

The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was post- 
poned on different pretences. He was detained in an 
easy confinement during many months. In the mean- 
time, the great revolution which Hastings had planned 
was carried into effect. The office of minister was abol- 
ished. The internal administration was transferred to 
the servants of the Company. A system, a very imper- 
fect system, it is true, of civil and criminal justice, under 
English superintendence, was established. The Nabob 
was no longer to have even an ostensible share in the 
government; but he was still to receive a considerable 
annual allowance, and to be surrounded with the state 
of sovereignty. As he was an infant, it was necessary 
to provide guardians for his person and property. His 
person was entrusted to a lady of his father's haram, 
known by the name of the Munny Begum. The office of 
treasurer of the household was bestowed on a son of 
Nuncomar, named Goordas. Nuncomar's services were 
wanted, yet he could not safely be trusted with power; 
and Hastings thought it a master stroke of policy to 
reward the able and unprincipled parent by promoting 
the inoffensive child. 

The revolution completed, the double government dis- 
solved, the Company installed in the full sovereignty of 
Bengal, Hastings had no motive to treat the late minis- 
ters with rigor. Their trial had been put off on various 
pleas till the new organization was complete. They were 
then brought before a committee, over which the Gov- 
ernor presided. Schitab Roy was speedily acquitted with 
honor. A formal apology was made to him for the re- 
straint to which he had been subjected. All the Eastern 
marks of respect were bestowed on him. He was clothed 
in a robe of state, presented with jewels and with a richly 
harnessed elephant, and sent back to his government at 



ii6 WARREN HASTINGS 

Patna. But his health had suffered from confinement ; 
his high spirit had been cruelly wounded; and soon after 
his liberation he died of a broken heart. 

The innocence of Mahommed Reza Khan was not so 
clearly established. But the Governor was not disposed 
to deal harshly. After a long hearing, in which Nun- 
comar appeared as the accuser, and displayed both the 
art and the inveterate rancor which distinguished him, 
Hastings pronounced that the charges had not been made 
out, and ordered the fallen minister to be set at liberty. 

Nuncomar had purposed to destroy the Mussulman ad- 
ministration, and to rise on its ruin. Both his malevo- 
lence and his cupidity had been disappointed. Hastings 
had made him a tool, had used him for the purpose of 
accomplishing the transfer of the government from Moor- 
shedabad to Calcutta, from native to European hands. 
The rival, the enemy, so long envied, so implacably per- 
secuted, had been dismissed unhurt. The situation so 
long and ardently desired had been abolished. It was 
natural that the Governor should be from that time an 
object of the most intense hatred to the vindictive Brah- 
min. As yet, however, it was necessary to suppress such 
feelings. The time was coming when that long animosity 
was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle. 

In the meantime, Hastings was compelled to turn his 
attention to foreign affairs. The object of his diplomacy 
was at this time simply to get money. The finances of 
his government were in an embarrassed state; and this 
embarrassment he was determined to relieve by some 
means, fair or foul. The principle which directed all 
his dealings with his neighbors is fully expressed by the 
old motto of one of the great predatory families of Teviot- 
dale, "Thou shalt want ere I want." He seems to have 
laid it down, as a fundamental proposition which could 
not be disputed, that when he had not as many lacs of 
rupees as the public service required, he was to take 
them from anybody who had. One thing, indeed, is to 



WARREN HASTINGS 117 

be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied to him 
by his employers at home was such as only the highest 
virtue could have withstood, such as left him no choice 
except to commit great wrongs, or to resign his high 
post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and dis- 
tinction. The Directors, it is true, never enjoined or 
applauded any crime. Far from it. Whoever examines 
their letters written at that time will find there many just 
and humane sentiments, many excellent precepts, in 
short, an admirable code of political ethics. But every 
exhortation is modified or nullified by a demand for 
money. "Govern leniently, and send more money; prac- 
tise strict justice and moderation towards neighboring 
powers, and send more money; " this is in truth the sum 
of almost all the instructions that Hastings ever received 
from home. Now these instructions, being interpreted, 
mean simply, "Be the father and the oppressor of the 
people; be just and unjust, moderate and rapacious." 
The Directors dealt with India as the church, in the 
good old times, dealt with a heretic. They delivered the 
victim over to the executioners, with an earnest request 
that all possible tenderness might be shown. We by no 
means accuse or suspect those who framed these despatches 
of hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen thou- 
sand miles from the place where their orders were to be 
carried into effect, they never perceived the gross incon- 
sistency of which they were guilty. But the inconsistency 
was at once manifest to their vicegerent at Calcutta, who, 
with an empty treasury, with an unpaid army, with his 
own salary often in arrear, with deficient crops, with 
government tenants daily running away, was called upon 
to remit home another half million without fail. Hast- 
ings saw that it was absolutely necessary for him to dis- 
regard either the moral discourses or the pecuniary requi- 
sitions of his employers. Being forced to disobey them 
in something, he had to consider what kind of disobedi- 
ence they would most readily pardon; and he correctly 



ii8 WARREN HASTINGS 

judged that the safest course would be to neglect the 
sermons and to find the rupees. 

A mind so fertile as his, and so little restrained by 
conscientious scruples, speedily discovered several modes 
of relieving the financial embarrassments of the govern- 
ment. The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal was 
reduced at a stroke from three hundred and twenty thou- 
sand pounds a year to half that sum. The Company had 
bound itself to pay near three hundred thousand pounds 
a year to the Great Mogul, as a mark of homage for the 
provinces which he had entrusted to their care ; and they 
had ceded to him the districts of Corah and Allahabad. 
On the plea that the Mogul was not really independent, 
but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings deter- 
mined to retract these concessions. He accordingly de- 
clared that the English would pay no more tribute, and 
sent troops to occupy Allahabad and Corah. The situa- 
tion of these places was such that there would be little 
advantage and great expense in retaining them. Hast- 
ings, who wanted money and not territory, determined to 
sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. The rich 
province of Oude had, in the general dissolution of the 
Mogul Empire, fallen to the share of the great Mussul- 
man house by which it is stiU governed. About twenty 
years ago, this house, by the permission of the British 
government, assumed the royal title; but, in the time of 
Warren Hastings, such an assumption would have been 
considered by the Mahommedans of India as a monstrous 
impiety. The Prince of Oude, though he held the 
power, did not venture to use the style of sovereignty. 
To the appellation of Nabob or Viceroy, he added that 
of Vizier of the monarchy of Hindostan, just as in the 
last century the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, 
though independent of the Emperor, and often in arms 
against him, were proud to style themselves his Grand 
Chamberlain and Grand Marshal. Sujah Dowlah, then 
Nabob Vizier, was on excellent terms with the English. 



WARREN HASTINGS 119 

He had a large treasure. Allahabad and Corah were so 
situated that they might be of use to him and could be of 
none to the Company. The buyer and seller soon came 
to an understanding; and the provinces which had been 
torn from the Mogul were made over to the government 
of Oude for about half a million sterling. 

But there was another matter still more important to 
be settled by the Vizier and the Governor. The fate of 
a brave people was to be decided. It was decided in a 
manner which has left a lasting stain on the fame of 
Hastings and of England. 

The people of Central Asia had always been to the 
inhabitants of India what the warriors of the German 
forests were to the subjects of the decaying monarchy of 
Kome. The dark, slender, and timid Hindoo shrank from 
a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit of 
the fair race, which dwelt beyond the passes. There is 
reason to believe that, at a period anterior to the dawn 
of regular history, the people who spoke the rich and 
flexible Sanskrit came from regions lying far beyond the 
Hyphasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed their yoke on 
the children of the soil. It is certain that, during the 
last ten centuries, a succession of invaders descended from 
the west on Hindostan; nor was the course of conquest 
ever turned back towards the setting sun, till that memor- 
able campaign in which the cross of St. George was 
planted on the walls of Ghizni. 

The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from the 
other side of the great mountain ridge; and it had 
always been their practice to recruit their army from the 
hardy and valiant race from which their own illustrious 
house sprang. Among the military adventurers who were 
allured to the Mogul standards from the neighborhood of 
Cabul and Candahar were conspicuous several gallant 
bands, known by the name of the Rohillas. Their ser- 
vices had been rewarded with large tracts of land, fiefs 
of the spear, if we may use an expression drawn from an 



I20 WARREN HASTINGS 

analogous state of things, in that fertile plain through 
which the Kamgunga flows from the snowy heights of 
Kumaon to join the Ganges. In the general confusion 
which followed the death of Aurungzebe, the warlike 
colony became virtually independent. The Rohillas were 
distinguished from the other inhabitants of India by a 
peculiarly fair complexion. They were more honorably 
distinguished by courage in war, and by skill in the arts 
of peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape 
Comorin, their little territory enjoyed the blessings of 
repose under the guardianship of valor. Agriculture and 
commerce flourished among them ; nor were they negli- 
gent of rhetoric and poetry. Many persons now living 
have heard aged men talk with regret of the golden days 
when the Afghan princes ruled in the vale of Rohilcund. 
Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich 
district to his own principality. Eight, or show of right, 
he had absolutely none. His claim was in no respect 
better founded than that of Catherine to Poland, or that 
of the Bonaparte family to Spain. The Rohillas held 
their country by exactly the same title by which he held 
his, and had governed their country far better than his 
had ever been governed. Nor were they a people whom 
it was perfectly safe to attack. Their land was indeed 
an open plain, destitute of natural defences; but their 
veins were full of the high blood of Afghanistan. As 
soldiers, they had not the steadiness which is seldom 
found except in company with strict discipline ; but their 
impetuous valor had been proved on many fields of bat- 
tle. It was said that their chiefs, when united by com- 
mon peril, could bring eighty thousand men into the 
field. Sujah Dowlah had himself seen them fight, and 
wisely shrank from a conflict with them. There was in 
India one army, and only one, against which even those 
proud Caucasian tribes could not stand. It had been 
abundantly proved that neither tenfold odds, nor the 
martial ardor of the boldest Asiatic nations, could avail 



WARREN HASTINGS 1 2 1 

aught against English science and resolution. Was it 
possible to induce the Governor of Bengal to let out to 
hire the irresistible energies of the imperial people, the 
skill against which the ablest chiefs of Hindostan were 
helpless as infants, the discipline which had so often 
triumphed over the frantic struggles of fanaticism and 
despair, the unconquerable British courage which is never 
so sedate and stubborn as towards the close of a doubtful 
and murderous day? 

This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and what 
Hastings granted. A bargain was soon struck. Each 
of the negotiators had what the other wanted. Hastings 
was in need of funds to carry on the government of 
Bengal, and to send remittances to London; and Sujah 
Dowlah had an ample revenue. Sujah Dowlah was bent 
on subjugating the Eohillas; and Hastings had at his 
disposal the only force by which the Eohillas could be 
subjugated. It was agreed that an English army should 
be lent to the Nabob Vizier, and that, for the loan, he 
should pay four hundred thousand pounds sterling, be- 
sides defraying all the charge of the troops while employed 
in his service. 

"I really cannot see," says Mr. Gleig, "upon what 
grounds, either of political or moral justice, this proposi- 
tion deserves to be stigmatized as infamous." If we un- 
derstand the meaning of words, it is infamous to commit 
a wicked action for hire, and it is wicked to engage in 
war without provocation. In this particular war, scarcely 
one aggravating circumstance was wanting. The object 
of the Rohilla war was this, to deprive a large population, 
who had never done us the least harm, of a good gov- 
ernment, and to place them, against their will, under an 
execrably bad one. Nay, even this is not all. England 
now descended far below the level even of those petty 
German princes who, about the same time, sold us troops 
to fight the Americans. The hussar-mongers of Hesse 
and Anspach had at least the assurance that the expedi- 



122 WARREN HASTINGS 

tions on whicli their soldiers were to be employed would 
be conducted in conformity with the humane rules of civ- 
ilized warfare. Was the Kohilla war likely to be so con- 
ducted? Did the Governor stipulate that it should be 
so conducted? He well knew what Indian warfare was. 
He well knew that the power which he covenanted to put 
into Sujah Dowlah's hands would, in all probability, be 
atrociously abused; and he required no guarantee, no 
promise that it should not be so abused. He did not 
even reserve to himself the right of withdrawing his aid 
in case of abuse, however gross. We are almost ashamed 
to notice Major Scott's absurd plea, that Hastings was 
justified in letting out English troops to slaughter the 
Rohillas, because the Rohillas were not of Indian race, 
but a colony from a distant country. What were the 
English themselves? Was it for them to proclaim a 
crusade for the expulsion of all intruders from the coun- 
tries watered by the Ganges? Did it lie in their mouths 
to contend that a foreign settler who establishes an em- 
pire in India is a ta'put lupinum f What would they have 
said if any other power had, on such a ground, attacked 
Madras or Calcutta, without the slightest provocation? 
Such a defence was wanting to make the infamy of the 
transaction complete. The atrocity of the crime, and the 
hypocrisy of the apology, are worthy of each other. 

One of the three brigades of which the Bengal army 
consisted was sent under Colonel Champion to join Sujah 
Dowlah's forces. The Rohillas expostulated, entreated, 
offered a large ransom, but in vain. They then resolved 
to defend themselves to the last. A bloody battle was 
fought. "The enemy," says Colonel Champion, "gave 
proof of a good share of military knowledge; and it is 
impossible to describe a more obstinate firmness of reso- 
lution than they displayed." The dastardly sovereign 
of Oude fled from the field. The English were left un- 
supported ; but their fire and their charge were irresist- 
ible. It was not, however, till the most distinguished 



WARREN HASTINGS 123 

chiefs had fallen, fighting bravely at the head of their 
troops, that the Eohilla ranks gave way. Then the Na- 
bob Vizier and his rabble made their appearance, and 
hastened to plunder the camp of the valiant enemies, 
v/hom they had never dared to look in the face. The 
soldiers of the Company, trained in an exact discipline, 
kept unbroken order, while the tents were pillaged by 
these worthless allies. But many voices were heard to 
exclaim, "We have had all the fighting, and those rogues 
are to have all the profit! " 

Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the 
fair valleys and cities of Eohilcund. The whole country 
was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled 
from their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring fam- 
ine, and fever, and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny 
of him to whom an English and a Christian government 
had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance, and their 
blood, and the honor of their wives and daughters. Colo- 
nel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and 
sent strong representations to Fort William; but the 
Governor had made no conditions as to the mode in 
which the war was to be carried on. He had troubled 
himself about nothing but his forty lacs; and, though he 
might disapprove of Sujah Dowlah's wanton barbarity, 
he did not think himself entitled to interfere, except by 
offering advice. This delicacy excites the admiration of 
the biographer. "Mr. Hastings," he says, "could not 
himself dictate to the Nabob, nor permit the commander 
of the Company's troops to dictate how the war was to be 
carried on." No, to be sure. Mr. Hastings had only to 
put down by main force the brave struggles of innocent 
men fighting for their liberty. Their military resistance 
crushed, his duties ended; and he had then only to fold 
his arms and look on, while their villages were burned, 
their children butchered, and their women violated. Will 
Mr. Gleig seriously maintain this opinion ? Is any rule 
more plain than this, that whoever voluntarily gives to 



124 WARREN HASTINGS 

another irresistible power over human beings is bound to 
take order that such power shall not be barbarously abused? 
But we beg pardon of our readers for arguing a point so 
clear. 

We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful story. 
The war ceased. The finest population in India was sub- 
jected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce 
and agriculture languished. The rich province which 
had tempted the cupidity of Sujah Dowlah became the 
most miserable part even of his miserable dominions. 
Yet is the injured nation not extinct. At long intervals 
gleams of its ancient spirit have flashed forth; and even 
at this day, valor, and self-respect, and a chivalrous 
feeling rare among Asiatics, and a bitter remembrance 
of the great crime of England, distinguish that noble 
Afghan race. To this day they are regarded as the best 
of all sepoys at the cold steel; and it was very recently 
remarked, by one who had enjoyed great opportunities of 
observation, that the only natives of India to whom the 
word "gentleman" can with perfect propriety be applied 
are to be found among the Rohillas. 

Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings, 
it cannot be denied that the financial results of his policy 
did honor to his talents. In less than two years after he 
assumed the government, he had, without imposing any 
additional burdens on the people subject to his authority, 
added about four hundred and fifty thousand pounds to 
the annual income of the Company, besides procuring 
about a million in ready money. He had also relieved 
the finances of Bengal from military expenditure, amount- 
ing to near a quarter of a million a year, and had thrown 
that charge on the Nabob of Oude. There can be no 
doubt that this was a result which, if it had been obtained 
by honest means, would have entitled him to the warmest 
gratitude of his country, and which, by whatever means 
obtained, proved that he possessed great talents for ad- 
ministration. 



WARREN HASTINGS 125 

In the meantime, Parliament had been engaged in long 
and grave discussions on Asiatic affairs. The ministry 
of Lord North, in the session of 1773, introduced a mea- 
sure which made a considerable change in the constitu- 
tion of the Indian government. This law, known by the 
name of the Eegulating Act, provided that the presidency 
of Bengal should exercise a control over the other posses- 
sions of the Company ; that the chief of that presidency 
should be styled Governor-General; that he should be 
assisted by four Councillors; and that a supreme court 
of judicature, consisting of a chief justice and three in- 
ferior judges, should be established at Calcutta. This 
court was made independent of the Governor-General and 
Council, and was entrusted with a civil and criminal 
jurisdiction of immense and, at the same time, of unde- 
fined extent. 

The Governor-General and Councillors were named in 
the act, and were to hold their situations for five years. 
Hastings was to be the first Governor-General. One of 
the four new Councillors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced 
servant of the Company, was then in India. The other 
three. General Clavering, Mr. Monson, and Mr. Francis, 
were sent out from England. 

The ablest of the new Councillors was, beyond all 
doubt, Philip Francis. His acknowledged compositions 
prove that he possessed considerable eloquence and infor- 
mation. Several years passed in the public offices had 
formed him to habits of business. His enemies have 
never denied that he had a fearless and manly spirit; 
and his friends, we are afraid, must acknowledge that his 
estimate of himself was extravagantly high, that his tem- 
per was irritable, that his deportment was often rude and 
petulant, and that his hatred was of intense bitterness 
and long duration. 

It is scarcely possible to mention this eminent man 
without adverting for a moment to the question which liis 
name at once suggests to every mind. Was he the author 



126 WARREN HASTINGS 

of the Letters of Junius ? Our own firm belief is that he 
was. The evidence is, we think, such as would support 
a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The 
handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting 
of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pur- 
suits, and connections of Junius, the following are the 
most important facts which can be considered as clearly 
proved : first, that he was acquainted with the technical 
forms of the secretary of state's office; secondly, that he 
was intimately acquainted with the business of the war 
office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended 
debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, 
particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, 
that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier 
to the place of deputy secretary-at-war ; fifthly, that he 
was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. 
Now, Francis passed some years in the secretary of state's 
office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war office. 
He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, 
heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of these 
speeches were actually printed from his notes. He re- 
signed his clerkship at the war office from resentment at 
the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Hol- 
land that he was first introduced into the public service. 
Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found 
in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do 
not believe that more than two of them can be found in 
any other person whatever. If this argument does not 
settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on 
circumstantial evidence. 

The internal evidence seems to us to point the same 
way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance 
to that of Junius ; nor are we disposed to admit, what is 
generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged com- 
positions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the 
anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at 
all events, is one which may be urged with at least equal 



WARREN HASTINGS 127 

force against every claimant that has ever been men- 
tioned, with the single exception of Burke; and it would 
be a waste of time to prove that Burke was not Junius. 
And what conclusion, after all, can be drawn from mere 
inferiority ? Every writer must produce his best work ; 
and the interval between his best work and his second 
best work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say 
that the best letters of Junius are more decidedly supe- 
rior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three pr 
four of Corneille's tragedies to the rest, than three or 
four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest, than the Pil- 
grim's Progress to the other works of Bunyan, than Don 
Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is cer- 
tain that Junius, whoever he may have been, was a most 
unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which 
bear the signature of Junius — the letter to the king, and 
the letters to Home Tooke, have little in common, except 
the asperity ; and asperity was an ingredient seldom want- 
ing either in the writings or in the speeches of Francis. 

Indeed one of the strongest reasons for believing that 
Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance between the 
two men. It is not difficult, from the letters which, 
under various signatures, are known to have been written 
by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and 
others, to form a tolerably correct notion of his character. 
He was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and 
magnanimity, a man whose vices were not of a sordid 
kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest 
degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, 
and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for 
public virtue. "Doest thou well to be angry? " was the 
question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. And 
he answered, "I do well." This was evidently the tem- 
per of Junius ; and to this cause we attribute the savage 
cruelty which disgraces several of his letters. No man 
is so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, 
confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be 



128 WARREN HASTINGS 

added that Junius, though allied with the democratic party 
by common enmities, was the very opposite of a demo- 
cratic politician. While attacking individuals with a 
ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary 
warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old insti- 
tutions with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded the 
cause of Old Sarum with fervor, and contemptuously 
told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they 
wanted votes, they might buy land and become freehold- 
ers of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, 
might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of 
Philip Francis. 

It is not strange that the great anonymous writer 
should have been willing at that time to leave the country 
which had been so powerfully stirred by his eloquence. 
Everything had gone against him. That party which he 
clearly preferred to every other, the party of George 
Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief; 
and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to 
the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by the 
Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must 
have been alike an object of aversion to Junius. His 
opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the 
ministry ; his opinions on colonial affairs from the opposi- 
tion. Under such circumstances, he had thrown down 
his pen in misanthropical despair. His farewell letter to 
Woodfall bears date the nineteenth of January, 1773. 
In that letter, he declared that he must be an idiot to 
write again ; that he had meant well by the cause and the 
public ; that both were given up ; that there were not ten 
men who would act steadily together on any question. 
"But it is all alike," he added, "vile and contemptible. 
You have never flinched that I know of; and I shall 
always rejoice to hear of your prosperity." These were 
the hist words of Junius. In a year from that time, 
Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengal. 

With the three new Councillors came out the judges of 



WARREN HASTINGS 129 

the Supreme Court. The chief justice was Sir Elijah 
Impey. He was an old acquaintance of Hastings; and 
it is probable that the Governor-General, if he had 
searched through all the inns of court, could not have 
found an equally serviceable tool. But the members of 
Council were by no means in an obsequious mood. Hast- 
ings greatly disliked the new form of government, and 
had no very high opinion of his coadjutors. They had 
heard of this, and were disposed to be suspicious and 
punctilious. When men are in such a frame of mind, 
any trifle is sufficient to give occasion for dispute. The 
members of Council expected a salute of twenty-one guns 
from the batteries of Fort William. Hastings allowed 
them only seventeen. They landed in ill-humor. The 
first civilities were exchanged with cold reserve. On the 
morrow commenced that long quarrel which, after dis- 
tracting British India, was renewed in England, and in 
which all the most eminent statesmen and orators of the 
age took active part on one or the other side. 

Hastings was supported by Barwell. They had not 
always been friends. But the arrival of the new mem- 
bers of Council from England naturally had the effect 
of uniting the old servants of the Company. Claver- 
ing, Monson, and Francis formed the majority. They 
instantly wrested the government out of the hands of 
Hastings; condemned, certainly not without justice, his 
late dealings with the Nabob Vizier; recalled the Eng- 
lish agent from Oude, and sent thither a creature of 
their own ; ordered the brigade which had conquered the 
unhappy Eohillas to return to the Company's territo- 
ries; and instituted a severe inquiry into the conduct 
of the war. Next, in spite of the Governor-General's 
remonstrances, they proceeded to exercise, in the most 
indiscreet manner, their new authority over the subor- 
dinate presidencies ; threw all the affairs of Bombay into 
confusion; and interfered, with an incredible union of 
rashness and feebleness, in the intestine disputes of the 



I30 WARREN HASTINGS 

Mahratta government. At the same time, they fell on the 
internal administration of Bengal, and attacked the whole 
fiscal and judicial system, a system which was undoubt- 
edly defective, but which it was very improbable that 
gentlemen fresh from England would be competent to 
amend. The effect of their reforms was that all protec- 
tion to life and property was withdrawn, and that gangs 
of robbers plundered and slaughtered with impunity in 
the very suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings continued to live 
in the Government House, and to draw the salary of 
Governor-General. He continued even to take the lead 
at the council board in the transaction of ordinary busi- 
ness ; for his opponents could not but feel that he knew 
much of which they were ignorant, and that he decided, 
both surely and speedily, many questions which to them 
would have been holpelessly puzzling. But the higher 
powers of government and the most valuable patronage 
had been taken from him. 

The natives soon found this out. They considered him 
as a fallen man ; and they acted after their kind. Some 
of our readers may have seen, in India, a cloud of crows 
pecking a sick vulture to death, no bad type of what 
happens in that country as often as fortune deserts one 
who has been great and dreaded. In an instant, all the 
sycophants who had lately been ready to lie for him, to 
forge for him, to pander for him, to poison for him, 
hasten to purchase the favor of his victorious enemies by 
accusing him. An Indian government has only to let it 
be understood that it wishes a particular man to be ruined, 
and in twenty -four hours it will be furnished with grave 
charges, supported by depositions so full and circumstan- 
tial that any person unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity 
would regard them as decisive. It is well if the signa- 
ture of the destined victim is not counterfeited at the foot 
of some illegal compact, and if some treasonable paper is 
not slipped into a hiding-place in his house. Hastings 
was now regarded as helpless. The power to make or 



WARREN HASTINGS 131 

mar the fortune of every man in Bengal had passed, as it 
seemed, into the hands of the new Councillors. Imme- 
diately charges against the Governor-General began to 
pour in. They were eagerly welcomed by the majority, 
who, to do them justice, were men of too much honor 
knowingly to countenance false accusations, but who 
were not sufficiently acquainted with the East to be aware 
that, in that part of the world, a very little encourage- 
ment from power will call forth, in a week, more Oateses, 
and Bedloes, and Dangerfields, than Westminster Hall 
sees in a century. 

It would have been strange indeed if, at such a junc- 
ture, Nuncomar had remained quiet. That bad man 
was stimulated at once by malignity, by avarice, and by 
ambition. Now was the time to be avenged on his old 
enemy, to wreak a grudge of seventeen years, to establish 
himself in the favor of the majority of the Council, to 
become the greatest native in Bengal. From the time of 
the arrival of the new Councillors, he had paid the most 
marked court to them, and had in consequence been ex- 
cluded, with all indignity, from the Government House. 
He now put into the hands of Francis, with great cere- 
mony, a paper containing several charges of the most 
serious description. By this document Hastings was 
accused of putting offices up to sale, and of receiving 
bribes for suffering offenders to escape. In particular, 
it was alleged that Mahommed Reza Khan had been dis- 
missed with impunity, in consideration of a great sum 
paid to the Governor-General. 

Francis read the paper in Council. A violent alterca- 
tion followed. Hastings complained in bitter terms of 
the way in which he was treated, spoke with contempt of 
Nuncomar and of Nuncomar' s accusation, and denied the 
right of the Council to sit in judgment on the Governor. 
At the next meeting of the board, another communica- 
tion from Nuncomar was produced. He requested that 
he might be permitted to attend the Council, and that he 



132 WARREN HASTINGS 

might be heard in support of his assertions. Another 
tempestuous debate took place. The Governor-General 
maintained that the council-room was not a propei place 
for such an investigation; that from persons who were 
heated by daily conflict with him he could not expect the 
fairness of judges; and that he could not, without betray- 
ing the dignity of his post, submit to be confronted with 
such a man as Nuncomar. The majority, however, re- 
solved to go into the charges. Hastings rose, declared 
rhe sitting at an end, and left the room, followed by Bar- 
well. The other members kept their seats, voted them- 
selves a council, put Clavering in the chair, and ordered 
Nuncomar to be called in. Nuncomar not only adhered 
to the original charges, but, after the fashion of the East, 
produced a large supplement. He stated that Hastings 
had received a great sum for appointing Kajah Goordas 
treasurer of the Nabob's household, and for committing 
the care of his Highness 's person to the Munny Begum. 
He put in a letter purporting to bear the seal of the 
Munny Begum, for the purpose of establishing the truth 
of his story. The seal, whether forged, as Hastings 
affirmed, or genuine, as we are rather inclined to believe, 
proved nothing. Nuncomar, as everybody knows who 
knows India, had only to tell the Munny Begum that 
such a letter would give pleasure to the majority of the 
Council, in order to procure her attestatioUo The major- 
ity, however, voted that the ctarge was made out; that 
Hastings had corruptly received between thirty and forty 
thousand pounds; and that he ought to be compelled to 
refund. 

The general feeling among the English in Bengal was 
strongly in favor of the Governor-General. In talents 
for business, in knowledge of the country, in general 
courtesy of demeanor, he was decidedly superior to his 
persecutors. The servants of the Company were natu- 
rally disposed to side with the most distinguished member 
of their own body against a clerk from the war office, 



WARREN HASTINGS 133 

who, profoundly ignorant of the native languages and of 
the native character, took on himself to regulate every 
department of the administration. Hastings, however, 
in spite of the general sympathy of his countrymen, was 
in a most painful situation. There was still an appeal 
to higher authority in England. If that authority took 
part with his enemies, nothing was left to him but to 
throw up his office. He accordingly placed his resigna- 
tion in the hands of his agent in London, Colonel Mac- 
leane. But Macleane was instructed not to produce the 
resignation, unless it should be fully ascertained that the 
feeling at the India House was adverse to the Governor- 
General. 

The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. 
He held a daily levee, to which his countrymen resorted 
in crowds, and to which, on one occasion, the majority of 
the Council condescended to repair. His house was an 
office for the purpose of receiving charges against the 
Governor-General. It was said that, partly by threats, 
and partly by wheedling, the villainous Brahmin had 
induced many of the wealthiest men of the province to 
send in complaints. But he was playing a perilous game. 
It was not safe to drive to despair a man of such resources 
and of such determination as Hastings. Nuncomar, with 
all his acuteness, did not understand the nature of the 
institutions under which he lived. He saw that he had 
with him the majority of the body which made treaties, 
gave places, raised taxes. The separation between politi- 
cal and judicial functions was a thing of which he had 
no conception. It had probably never occurred to him 
that there was in Bengal an authority perfectly independ- 
ent of the Council, an authority which could protect one 
whom the Council wished to destroy, and send to the 
gibbet one whom the Council wished to protect. Yet 
such was the fact. The Supreme Court was, within the 
sphere of its own duties, altogether independent of the 
Government. Hastings, with his usual sagacity, had seen 



134 WARREN HASTINGS 

how much advantage he might derive from possessing 
himself of this stronghold; and he had acted accordingly. 
The Judges, especially the Chief Justice, were hostile to 
the majority of the Council. The time had now come 
for putting this formidable machinery into action. 

On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the news that 
Nuncomar had been taken up on a charge of felony, 
committed, and thrown into the common jail. The crime 
imputed to him was that six years before he had forged 
a bond. The ostensible prosecutor was a native. But it 
was then, and still is, the opinion of everybody, idiots 
and biographers excepted, that Hastings was the real 
mover in the business. 

The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. 
They protested against the proceedings of the Supreme 
Court, and sent several urgent messages to the Judges, 
demanding that Nuncomar should be admitted to bail. 
The Judges returned haughty and resolute answers. All 
that the Council could do was to heap honors and emolu- 
ments on the family of Nuncomar; and this they did. 
In the meantime the assizes commenced ; a true bill was 
found; and Nuncomar was brought before Sir Elijah 
Impey and a jury composed of Englishmen. A great 
quantity of contradictory swearing, and the necessity of 
having every word of the evidence interpreted, protracted 
the trial to a most unusual length. At last a verdict of 
guilty was returned, and the Chief Justice pronounced 
sentence of death on the prisoner. 

That Impey ought to have respited Nuncomar we hold 
to be perfectly clear. Whether the whole proceeding 
was not illegal is a question. But it is certain that, 
whatever may have been, according to technical rules of 
construction, the effect of the statute under which the 
trial took place, it was most unjust to hang a Hindoo for 
forg^y. The law which made forgery capital in Eng- 
land was passed without the smallest reference to the 
state of society in India. It was unknown to the natives 



WARREN HASTINGS 135 

of India. It had never been put in execution among 
them, certainly not for want of delinquents. It was in 
the highest degree shocking to all their notions. They 
were not accustomed to the distinction which many cir- 
cumstances, peculiar to our own state of society, have led 
us to make between forgery and other kinds of cheating. 
The counterfeiting of a seal was, in their estimation, a 
common act of swindling ; nor had it ever crossed their 
minds that it was to be punished as severely as gang- 
robbery or assassination. A just judge would, beyond all 
doubt, have reserved the case for the consideration of the 
sovereign. But Impey would not hear of mercy or delay. 
The excitement among all classes was great. Francis 
and Francis's few English adherents described the Gov- 
ernor-General and the Chief Justice as the Worst of mur- 
derers. Clavering, it was said, swore that, even at the 
foot of the gallows, Nuncomar should be rescued. The 
bulk of the European society, though strongly attached 
to the Governor-General, could not but feel compassion 
for a man who, with all his crimes, had so long filled so 
large a space in their sight, who had been great and 
powerful before the British empire in India began to 
exist, and to whom, in the old times, governors and 
members of council, then mere commercial factors, had 
paid court for protection. The feeling of the Hindoos 
was infinitely stronger. They were, indeed, not a people 
to strike one blow for their countryman. But his sen- 
tence filled them with sorrow and dismay. Tried even 
by their low standard of morality, he was a bad man. 
But, bad as he was, he was the head of their race and 
religion, a Brahmin of the Brahmins. He had inherited 
the purest and highest caste. He had practised with the 
greatest punctuality all those ceremonies to which the 
superstitious Bengalese ascribe far more* importance than 
to the correct discharge of the social duties. They felt, 
therefore, as a devout Catholic in the dark ages would 
have felt at seeing a prelate of the highest dignity sent 



136 WARREN HASTINGS 

to the gallows by a secular tribunal. According to their 
old national laws, a Brahmin could not be put to death 
for any crime whatever. And the crime for which Nun- 
comar was about to die was regarded by them in much 
the same light in which the selling of an unsound horse 
for a sound price is regarded by a Yorkshire jockey. 

The Mussulmans alone appear to have seen with exul- 
tation the fate of the powerful Hindoo, who had at- 
tempted to rise by means of the ruin of Mahommed Reza 
Khan. The Mahommedan historian of those times takes 
delight in aggravating the charge. He assures us that 
in Nuncomar's house a casket was found containing coun- 
terfeits of the seals of all the richest men of the province. 
We have never fallen in with any other authority for this 
story, which in itself is by no means improbable. 

The day drew near; and Nuncomar prepared himself 
to die with that quiet fortitude with which the Bengalee, 
so effeminately timid in personal conflict, often encoun- 
ters calamities for which there is no remedy. The sheriff, 
with the humanity which is seldom wanting in an English 
gentleman, visited the prisoner on the eve of the execu- 
tion, and assured him that no indulgence, consistent with 
the law, should be refused to him. Nuncomar expressed 
his gratitude with great politeness and unaltered compo- 
sure. Not a muscle of his face moved. Not a sigh broke 
from him. He put his finger to his forehead, and calmly 
said that fate would have its way, and that there was no 
resisting the pleasure of God. He sent his compliments 
to Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and charged them to 
protect Rajah Goordas, who was about to become the 
head of the Brahmins of Bengal. The sheriff withdrew, 
greatly as^itated by what had passed, and Nuncomar sat 
composedly down to write notes and examine accounts. 

The next morning, before the sun was in his power, an 
immense concourse assembled round the place where the 
gallows had been set up. Grief and horror were on every 
face ; yet to the last the multitude could hardly believe 



WARREN HASTINGS 137 

that the English really purposed to take the life of the 
great Brahmin. At length the mournful procession came 
through the crowd. Nuncomar sat up in his palanquin, 
and looked round him with unaltered serenity. He had 
just parted from those who were most nearly connected 
with him. Their cries and contortions had appalled the 
European ministers of justice, but had not produced the 
smallest effect on the iron stoicism of the prisoner. The 
only anxiety which he expressed was that men of his own 
priestly caste might be in attendance to take charge of 
his corpse. He again desired to be remembered to his 
friends in the Council, mounted the scaffold with firm- 
ness, and gave the signal to the executioner. The mo- 
ment that the drop fell, a howl of sorrow and despair 
rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds turned 
away their faces from the polluting sight, fled with loud 
wailings towards the Hoogley, and plunged into its holy 
waters, as if to purify themselves from the guilt of hav- 
ing looked on such a crime. These feelings were not 
confined to Calcutta. The whole province was greatly 
excited ; and the population of Dacca, in particular, gave 
strong signs of grief and dismay. 

Of Impey's conduct it is impossible to speak too 
severely. We have already said that, in our opinion, he 
acted unjustly in refusing to respite Nuncomar. No 
rational man can doubt that he took this course in order 
to gratify the Governor-General. If we had ever had 
any doubts on that point, they would have been dispelled 
by a letter which Mr. Gleig has published. Hastings, 
three or four years later, described Impey as the man 
"to whose support he was at one time indebted for the 
safety of his fortune, honor, and reputation." These 
strong words can refer only to the case of Nuncomar ; and 
they must mean that Impey hanged Nuncomar in order 
to support Hastings. It is, therefore, our deliberate 
opinion that Impey, sitting as a judge, put a man un- 
justly to death in order to serve a political purpose. 



138 WARREN HASTINGS 

But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a somewhat 
different light. He was struggling for fortune, honor, 
liberty, all that makes life valuable. He was beset by 
rancorous and unprincipled enemies. From his col- 
leagues he could expect no justice. He cannot be blamed 
for wishing to crush his accusers. He was indeed bound 
to use only legitimate means for that end. But it was 
not strange that he should have thought any means legiti- 
mate which were pronounced legitimate by the sages of 
the law, by men whose peculiar duty it was to deal justly 
between adversaries, and whose education might be sup- 
posed to have peculiarly qualified them for the discharge 
of that duty. Nobody demands from a party the unbend- 
ing equity of a judge. The reason that judges are ap- 
pointed is, that even a good man cannot be trusted to 
decide a cause in which he is himself concerned. Not a 
day passes on which an honest prosecutor does not ask for 
what none but a dishonest tribunal would grant. It is 
too much to expect that any man, when his dearest inter- 
ests are at stake, and his strongest passions excited, will, 
as against himself, be more just than the sworn dispensers 
of justice. To take an analogous case from the history 
of our own island : suppose that Lord Stafford, when in 
the Tower on suspicion of being concerned in the Popish 
Plot, had been apprised that Titus Oates had done some- 
thing which might, by a questionable construction, be 
brought under the head of felony. Should we severely 
blame Lord Stafford, in the supposed case, for causing a 
prosecution to be instituted, for furnishing funds, for 
using all his influence to intercept the mercy of the 
Crown? We think not. If a judge, indeed, from favor 
to the Catholic lords, were to strain the law in order to 
hang Oates, such a judge would richly deserve impeach- 
ment. But it does not appear to us that the Catholic 
lord, by bringing the case before the judge for decision, 
would materially overstep the limits of a just self-defence. 

While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that this 



WARREN HASTINGS 139 

memorable execution is to be attributed to Hastings, we 
doubt whether it can with justice be reckoned among his 
crimes. That his conduct was dictated by a profound 
policy is evident. He was in a minority in Council. It 
was possible that he might long be in a minority. He 
knew the native character well. He knew in what abun- 
dance accusations are certain to flow in against the most 
innocent inhabitant of India who is under the frown of 
power. There was not in the whole black population 
of Bengal a place-holder, a place-hunter, a government 
tenant, who did not think that he might better himself 
by sending up a deposition against the Governor-General. 
Under these circumstances, the persecuted statesman re- 
solved to teach the whole crew of accusers and witnesses 
that, though in a minority at the council board, he was 
still to be feared. The lesson which he gave them was 
indeed a lesson not to be forgotten. The head of the 
combination which had been formed against him, the 
richest, the most powerful, the most artful of the Hin- 
doos, distinguished by the favor of those who then held 
the government, fenced round by the superstitious rever- 
ence of millions, was hanged in broad day before many 
thousands of people. Everything that could make the 
warning impressive, dignity in the sufferer, solemnity in 
the proceeding, was found in this case. The helpless 
rage and vain struggles of the Council made the triumph 
more signal. From that moment the conviction of every 
native was that it was safer to take the part of Hastings 
in a minority than that of Francis in a majority, and that 
he who was so venturous as to join in running down the 
Governor-General might chance, in the phrase of the 
Eastern poet, to find a tiger, while beating the jungle 
for a deer. The voices of a thousand informers were 
silenced in an instant. From that time, whatever diffi- 
culties Hastings might have to encounter, he was never 
molested by accusations from natives of India. 

It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters 



I40 WARREN HASTINGS 

of Hastings to Dr. Jolmson bears date a very few hours 
after the death of Nuncomar. While the whole settle- 
ment was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient 
priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, 
the conqueror in that deadly grapple sat down, with 
characteristic self-possession, to write about the Tour to 
the Hebrides, Jones's Persian Grammar, and the history, 
traditions, arts, and natural productions of India. 

In the meantime, intelligence of the Rohilla war, and 
of the first disputes between Hastings and his colleagues, 
had reached London. The Directors took part with the 
majority, and sent out a letter filled with severe reflec- 
tions on the conduct of Hastings. They condemned, in 
strong but just terms, the iniquity of undertaking offen- 
sive wars merely for the sake of pecuniary advantages. 
But they utterly forgot that, if Hastings had by illicit 
means obtained pecuniary advantages, he had done so, 
not for his own benefit, but in order to meet their de- 
mands. To enjoin honesty, and to insist on having what 
could not be honestly got, was then the constant practice 
of the Company. As Lady Macbeth says of her husband, 
they "would not play false, and yet would wrongly win." 

The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been 
appointed Governor-General for five years, empowered 
the Crown to remove him on an address from the Com- 
pany. Lord North was desirous to procure such an ad- 
dress. The three members of Council who had been sent 
out from England were men of his own choice. General 
Clavering, in particular, was supported by a large parlia- 
mentary connection, such as no cabinet could be inclined 
to disoblige. The wish of the Minister was to displace 
Hastings, and to put Clavering at the head of the govern- 
ment. In the Court of Directors parties were very nearly 
balanced. Eleven voted against Hastings ; ten for him. 
The Court of Proprietors was then convened. The great 
saleroom presented a singular appearance. Letters had 
been sent by the Secretary of the Treasury, exhorting all 



WARREN HASTINGS 141 

the supporters of government who held India stock to be 
in attendance. Lord Sandwich marshalled the friends of 
the administration with his usual dexterity and alertness. 
Fifty peers and privy councillors, seldom seen so far east- 
ward, were counted in the crowd. The debate lasted till 
midnight. The opponents of Hastings had a small supe- 
riority on the division ; but a ballot was demanded ; and 
the result was that the Governor-General triumphed by a 
majority of above a hundred votes over the combined 
efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. The ministers 
were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even Lord 
North lost his temper, no ordinary occurrence with him, 
and threatened to convoke Parliament before Christmas, 
and to bring in a bill for depriving the Company of all 
political power, and for restricting it to its old business 
of trading in silks and teas. 

Colonel Macleane, who through all this conflict had 
zealously supported the cause of Hastings, now thought 
that his employer was in imminent danger of being turned 
out, branded with parliamentary censure, perhaps pro- 
secuted. The opinion of the crown lawyers had already 
been taken respecting some parts of the Governor-Gen- 
eral's conduct. It seemed to be high time to think of 
securing an honorable retreat. Under these circum- 
stances, Macleane thought himself justified in producing 
the resignation with which he had been entrusted. The 
instrument was not in very accurate form ; but the Direc- 
tors were too eager to be scrupulous. They accepted the 
resignation, fixed on Mr. Wheler, one of their own body, 
to succeed Hastings, and sent out orders that General 
Clavering, as senior member of Council, should exercise 
the functions of Governor-General till Mr. Wheler should 
arrive. 

But, while these things were passing in England, a 
great change had taken place in Bengal. Monson was 
no more. Only four members of the government were 
left. Clavering and Francis were on one side, Barwell 



142 WARREN HASTINGS 

and the Governor-General on the other; and the Gov- 
ernor-General had the casting vote. Hastings, who had 
been during two years destitute of all power and patron- 
age, became at once absolute. He instantly proceeded 
to retaliate on his adversaries. Their measures were 
reversed, their creatures vv^ere displaced. A new valua- 
tion of the lands of Bengal, for the purposes of taxation, 
was ordered; and it was provided that the whole inquiry 
should be conducted by the Governor-General, and that 
all the letters relating to it should run in his name. He 
began, at the same time, to revolve vast plans of conquest 
and dominion, plans which he lived to see realized, though 
not by himself. His project was to form subsidiary alli- 
ances with the native princes, particularly with those of 
Oude and Berar, and thus to make Britain the para- 
mount power in India. While he was meditating these 
great designs, arrived the intelligence that he had ceased 
to be Governor-General, that his resignation had been 
accepted, that Wheler was coming out immediately, and 
that, till Wheler arrived, the chair was to be filled by 
Clavering. 

Had Hastings still been in a minority, he would prob- 
ably have retired without a struggle ; but he was now the 
real master of British India, and he was not disposed to 
quit his high place. He asserted that he had never 
given any instructions which could warrant the steps 
taken at home. What his instructions had been, he 
owned he had forgotten. If he had kept a copy of them 
he had mislaid it. But he was certain that he had re- 
peatedly declared to the Directors that he would not 
resign. He could not see how the court, possessed of 
that declaration from himself, could receive his resigna- 
tion from the doubtful hands of an agent. If the resig- 
nation were invalid, all the proceedings which were 
founded on that resignation were null, and Hastings was 
still Governor-General. 

He afterwards affirmed that, though his agents had 



WARREN HASTINGS 143 

not acted in conformity with his instructions, he would 
nevertheless have held himself bound by their acts, if 
Clavering had not attempted to seize the supreme power 
by violence. Whether this assertion were or were not 
true, it cannot be doubted that the imprudence of Claver- 
ing gave Hastings an advantage. The General sent for 
the keys of the fort and of the treasury, took possession 
of the records, and held a council at which Francis at- 
tended. Hastings took the chair in another apartment, 
and Barwell sat with him. Each of the two parties had 
a plausible show of right. There was no authority 
entitled to their obedience within fifteen thousand miles. 
It seemed that there remained no way of settling the dis- 
pute except an appeal to arms; and from such an appeal 
Hastings, confident of his influence over his countrymen 
in India, was not inclined to shrink. He directed the 
officers of the garrison of Fort William and of all the 
neighboring stations to obey no orders but his. At the 
same time, with admirable judgment, he offered to sub- 
mit the case to the Supreme Court, and to abide by its 
decision. By making this proposition he risked nothing; 
yet it was a proposition which his opponents could hardly 
reject. Nobody could be treated as a criminal for obey- 
ing what the judges should solemnly pronounce to be the 
lawful government. The boldest man would shrink from 
taking arms in defence of what the judges should pro- 
nounce to be usurpation. Clavering and Francis, after 
some delay, unwillingly consented to abide by the award 
of the court. The court pronounced that the resignation 
was invalid, and that therefore Hastings was still Gov- 
ernor-General under the Eegulating Act ; and the defeated 
members of the Council, finding that the sense of the 
whole settlement was against them, acquiesced in the 
decision. 

About this time arrived the news that, after a suit 
which had lasted several years, the Franconian courts 
had decreed a divorce between Imhoff and his wife. The 



144 WARREN HASTINGS 

Baron left Calcutta, carrying with him the means of 
buying an estate in Saxony. The lady became Mrs. 
Hastings. The event was celebrated by great festivities; 
and all the most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, without 
distinction of parties, were invited to the Government 
House. Clavering, as the Mahommedan chronicler tells 
the story, was sick in mind and body, and excused him- 
self from joining the splendid assembly. But Hastings, 
whom, as it should seem, success in ambition and in love 
had put into high good-humor, would take no denial. 
He went himself to the General's house, and at length 
brought his vanquished rival in triumph to the gay circle 
which surrounded the bride. The exertion was too much 
for a frame broken by mortification as well as by disease. 
Clavering died a few days later. 

Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor- 
General, and was forced to content himself with a seat 
at the council board, generally voted with Francis. But 
the Governor-General, with Barwell's help and his own 
casting vote, was still the master. Some change took 
place at this time in the feeling both of the Court of 
Directors and of the Ministers of the Crown. All designs 
against Hastings were dropped; and, when his original 
term of five years expired, he was quietly reappointed. 
The truth is that the fearful dangers to which the public 
interests in every quarter were now exposed made both 
Lord North and the Company unwilling to part with a 
Governor whose talents, experience, and resolution en- 
mity itself was compelled to acknowledge. 

The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and 
victorious empire, on the throne of which George the 
Third had taken his seat eighteen years before, with 
brighter hopes than had attended the accession of any of 
the long line of English sovereigns, had, by the most 
senseless misgovernment, been brought to the verge of 
ruin. In America millions of Englishmen were at war 
with the country from which their blood, their language, 



WARREN HASTINGS 145 

their religion, and their institutions were derived, and to 
which, but a short time before, they had been as strongly 
attached as the inhabitants of Norfolk and Leicestershire. 
The great powers of Europe, humbled to the dust by the 
vigor and genius which had guided the councils of George 
the Second, now rejoiced in the prospect of a signal 
revenge. The time was approaching when our island, 
while struggling to keep down the United States of 
America, and pressed with a still nearer danger by the 
too just discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed by 
France, Spain, and Holland, and to be threatened by the 
armed neutrality of the Baltic ; when even our maritime 
supremacy was to be in jeopardy; when hostile fleets 
were to command the Straits of Calpe and the Mexican 
Sea ; when the British flag was to be scarcely able to pro- 
tect the British Channel. Great as were the faults of 
Hastings, it was happy for our country that at that con- 
juncture, the most terrible through which she has ever 
passed, he was the ruler of her Indian dominions. 

An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be appre- 
hended. The danger was that the European enemies of 
England might form an alliance with some native power, 
might furnish that power with troops, arms, and ammu- 
nition, and might thus assail our possessions on the side 
of the land. It was chiefly from the Mahrattas that 
Hastings anticipated danger. The original seat of that 
singular people was the wild range of hills which runs 
along the western coast of India. In the reign of Au- 
rungzebe the inhabitants of those regions, led by the 
great Sevajee, began to descend on the possessions of 
their wealthier and less warlike neighbors. The energy, 
ferocity, and cunning of the Mahrattas soon made them 
the most conspicuous among the new powers which were 
generated by the corruption of the decaying monarchy. 
At first they were only robbers. They soon rose to the 
dignity of conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire 
were turned into Mahratta principalities. Freebooters, 



146 WARREN HASTINGS 

sprung from low castes, and accustomed to menial employ- 
ments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the 
head of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast region of 
Berar. The Guieowar, which is, being interpreted, the 
Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in 
Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great 
in Malwa. One adventurous captain made his nest on 
the impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became the lord 
of the thousand villages which are scattered among the 
green rice-fields of Tan j ore. 

That was the time, throughout India, of double gov- 
ernment. The form and the power were everywhere 
separated. The Mussulman nabobs who had become 
sovereign princes, the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam at 
Hyderabad, still called themselves the viceroys of the 
house of Tamerlane. In the same manner the Mahratta 
states, though really independent of each other, pretended 
to be members of one empire. They all acknowledged, 
by words and ceremonies, the suj)remacy of the heir of 
Sevajee, a roi faineant who chewed bhang and toyed with 
dancing girls in a state prison at Sattara, and of his 
Peshwa or mayor of the palace, a great hereditary magis- 
trate, who kept a court with kingly state at Poonah, and 
whose authority was obeyed in the spacious provinces of 
Aurungabad and Bejapoor. 

Some months before war was declared in Europe the 
government of Bengal was alarmed by the news that a 
French adventurer, who passed for a man of quality, had 
arrived at Poonah. It was said that he had been received 
there with great distinction, that he had delivered to the 
Peshwa letters and presents from Louis the Sixteenth, 
and that a treaty, hostile to England, had been concluded 
between Prance and the Mahrattas. 

Hastings immediately resolved to strike the first blow. 
The title of the Peshwa was not undisputed. A portion 
of the Mahratta nation was favorable to a pretender. 
The Governor-General determined to espouse this pre- 



WARREN HASTINGS 147 

tender's interest, to move an army across the peninsula 
of India, and to form a close alliance with the chief of 
the house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, and who, in power 
and dignity, was inferior to none of the Mahratta princes. 

The army had marched, and the negotiations with 
Berar were in progress, when a letter from the English 
consul at Cairo brought the news that war had been pro- 
claimed both in London and Paris. All the measures 
which the crisis required were adopted by Hastings with- 
out a moment's delay. The French factories in Bengal 
were seized. Orders were sent to Madras that Pon- 
dicherry should instantly be occupied. Near Calcutta, 
works were thrown up which were thought to render the 
approach of a hostile force impossible. A maritime estab- 
lishment was formed for the defence of the river. Nine 
new battalions of sepoys were raised, and a corps of 
native artillery was formed out of the hardy Lascars of 
the Bay of Bengal. Having made these arrangements, 
the Governor- General with calm confidence pronounced 
his presidency secure from all attack, unless the Mahrattas 
should march against it in conjunction with the French. 

The expedition which Hastings had sent westward was 
not so speedily or completely successful as most of his 
undertakings. The commanding officer procrastinated. 
The authorities at Bombay blundered. But the Gov- 
ernor-General persevered. A new commander repaired the 
errors of his predecessor. Several brilliant actions spread 
the military renown of the English through regions where 
no European flag had ever been seen. It is probable 
that, if a new and more formidable danger had not com- 
pelled Hastings to change his whole policy, his plans 
respecting the Mahratta empire would have been carried 
into complete effect. 

The authorities in England had wisely sent out to 
Bengal, as commander of the forces and member of the 
Council, one of the most distinguished soldiers of that 
time. Sir Eyre Coote had, many years before, been 



148 WARREN HASTINGS 

conspicuous among the founders of the British empire in 
the East. At the council of war which preceded the 
battle of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in opposi- 
tion to the majority, that daring course which, after some 
hesitation, was adopted, and which was crowned with 
such splendid success. He subsequently commanded in 
the south of India against the brave and unfortunate 
Lally, gained the decisive battle of Wandewash over the 
French and their native allies, took Pondicherry, and 
made the English power supreme in the Carnatic. Since 
those great exploits near twenty years had elapsed. Coote 
had no longer the bodily activity which he had shown in 
earlier days ; nor was the vigor of his mind altogether un- 
impaired. He was capricious and fretful, and required 
much coaxing to keep him in good-humor. It must, we 
fear, be added, that the love of money had grown upon 
him, and that he thought more about his allowances, and 
less about his duties, than might have been expected from 
so eminent a member of so noble a profession. Still he 
was perhaps the ablest officer that was then to be found 
in the British army. Among the native soldiers his name 
was great and his influence unrivalled. Nor is he yet 
forgotten by them. Now and then a white-bearded old 
sepoy may still be found, who loves to talk of Porto Novo 
and PoUilore. It is but a short time since one of those 
aged men came to present a memorial to an English 
officer, who holds one of the highest employments in 
India. A print of Coote hung in the room. The veteran 
recognized at once that face and figure which he had not 
seen for more than half a century, and, forgetting his 
salam to the living, halted, drew himself up, lifted his 
hand, and with solemn reverence paid his military obei- 
sance to the dead. 

Coote, though he did not, like Barwell, vote constantly 
with the Governor-General, was by no means inclined to 
join in systematic opposition, and on most questions con- 
curred with Hastings, who did his best, by assiduous 



WARREN HASTINGS 149 

courtship, and by readily granting the most exorbitant 
allowances, to gratify the strongest passions o£ the old 
soldier. 

It seemed likely at this time that a general reconcilia- 
tion would put an end to the quarrels which had, during 
some years, weakened and disgraced the government of 
Bengal. The dangers of the empire might well induce 
men of patriotic feeling — and of patriotic feeling neither 
Hastings nor Francis was destitute — to forget private 
enmities, and to cooperate heartily for the general good. 
Coote had never been concerned in faction. Wheler was 
thoroughly tired of it. Barwell had made an ample 
fortune, and, though he had promised that he would not 
leave Calcutta while his help was needed in Council, was 
most desirous to return to England, and exerted himseK 
to promote an arrangement which would set him at liberty. 
A compact was made, by which Francis agreed to desist 
from opposition, and Hastings engaged that the friends 
of Francis should be admitted to a fair share of the 
honors and emoluments of the service. During a few 
months after this treaty there was apparent harmony at 
the council board. 

Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary; for at 
this moment internal calamities, more formidable than 
war itself, menaced Bengal. The authors of the Reg- 
ulating Act of 1773 had established two independent 
powers, the one judicial, the other political; and, with a 
carelessness scandalously common in English legislation, 
had omitted to define the limits of either. The judges 
took advantage of the indistinctness, and attempted to 
draw to themselves supreme authority, not only within 
Calcutta, but through the whole of the great territory 
subject to the presidency of Fort William. There are 
few Englishmen who will not admit that the English law, 
in spite of modern improvements, is neither so cheap nor 
so speedy as might be wished. Still, it is a system which 
has grown up among us. In some points, it has been 



I50 WARREN HASTINGS 

fashioned to suit our feelings; in others, it has gradually 
fashioned our feelings to suit itself. Even to its worst 
evils we are accustomed; and therefore, though we may 
complain of them, they do not strike us with the horror 
and dismay which would be produced by a new grievance 
of smaller severity. In India the case is widely different. 
English law, transplanted to that country, has all the 
vices from which we suffer here; it has them all in a 
far higher degree ; and it has other vices, compared with 
which the worst vices from which we suffer are trifles. 
Dilatory here, it is far more dilatory in a land where the 
help of an interpreter is needed by every judge and by 
every advocate. Costly here, it is far more costly in a 
land into which the legal practitioners must be imported 
from an immense distance. All English labor in India, 
from the labor of the Governor-General and the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, down to that of a groom or a watch- 
maker, must be paid for at a higher rate than at home. 
No man will be banished, and banished to the torrid 
zone, for nothing. The rule holds good with respect to 
the legal profession. No English barrister will work, 
fifteen thousand miles from all his friends, with the 
thermometer at ninety-six in the shade, for the emolu- 
ments which will content him in chambers that overlook 
the Thames. Accordingly, the fees at Calcutta are 
about three times as great as the fees of Westminster 
Hall; and this, though the people of India are, beyond 
all comparison, poorer than the people of England. Yet 
the delay and the expense, grievous as they are, form the 
smallest part of the evil which English law, imported 
without modifications into India, could not fail to pro- 
duce. The strongest feelings of our nature, honor, re- 
ligion, female modesty, rose up against the innovation. 
Arrest on mesne process was the first step in most civil 
proceedings; and to a native of rank arrest was not 
merely a restraint, but a foul personal indignity. Oaths 
were required in every stage of every suit; and the feel- 



WARREN HASTINGS 151 

ing of a Quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than 
that of a respectable native. That the apartments of a 
woman of quality should be entered by strange men, or 
that her face should be seen by them, are, in the East, 
intolerable outrages, — outrages which are more dreaded 
than death, and which can be expiated only by the shed- 
ding of blood. To these outrages the most distinguished 
families of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, were now exposed. 
Imagine what the state of our own country would be, if 
a jurisprudence were on a sudden introduced among us, 
which should be to us what our jurisprudence was to our 
Asiatic subjects. Imagine what the state of our country 
would be, if it were enacted that any man, by merely 
swearing that a debt was due to him, should acquire a 
right to insult the persons of men of the most honorable 
and sacred callings and of women of the most shrinking 
delicacy, to horsewhip a general officer, to put a bishop in 
the stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called forth 
the blow of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the 
effect of the attempt which the Supreme Court made to 
extend its jurisprudence over the whole of the Company's 
territory. 

A reign of terror began, of terror heightened by mys- 
tery : for even that which was endured was less horrible 
than that which was anticipated. No man knew what 
was next to be expected from this strange tribunal. It 
came from beyond the black water, as the people of 
India, with mysterious horror, call the sea. It consisted 
of judges not one of whom was familiar with the usages 
of the millions over whom they claimed boundless author- 
ity. Its records were kept in unknown characters; its 
sentences were pronounced in unknown sounds. It had 
already collected round itself an army of the worst part 
of the native population, informers, and false witnesses, 
and common barrators, and agents of chicane, and, above 
all, a banditti of bailiffs' followers, compared with whom 
the retainers of the worst English sponging-houses, in 



152 WARREN HASTINGS 

the worst times, might be considered as upright and ten- 
der-hearted. Many natives, highly considered among their 
countrymen, were seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung 
into the common jail, not for any crime even imputed, 
not for any debt that had been proved, but merely as a 
precaution till their cause should come to trial. There 
were instances in which men of the most venerable dis:- 
nity, persecuted without a cause by extortioners, died of 
rage and shame in the gripe of the vile alguazils of 
Impey. The harams of noble Mahommedans, sanctuaries 
respected in the East by governments which respected 
nothing else, were burst open by gangs of bailiffs. The 
Mussulmans, braver and less accustomed to submission 
than the Hindoos, sometimes stood on their defence; and 
there were instances in which they shed their blood in 
the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the sacred 
apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed as if even 
the faint-hearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the feet 
of Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute during the ad- 
ministration of Vansittart, would at length find courage 
in despair. No Mahratta invasion had ever spread 
through the province such dismay as this inroad of Eng- 
lish lawyers. All the injustice of former oppressors, 
Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing when com- 
pared with the justice of the Supreme Court. 

Every class of the population, English and native, 
with the exception of the ravenous pettifoggers who fat- 
tened on the misery and terror of an immense community, 
cried out loudly against this fearful oppression. But the 
judges were immovable. If a bailiff was resisted, they 
ordered the soldiers to be called out. If a servant of the 
Company, in conformity with the orders of the gov- 
ernment, withstood the miserable catchpoles who, with 
Impey' s writs in their hands, exceeded the insolence and 
rapacity of gang-robbers, he was flung into prison for a 
contempt. The lapse of sixty years, the virtue and wis- 
dom of many eminent magistrates who have during that 



WARREN HASTINGS 153 

time administered justice in the Supreme Court, Lave not 
effaced from the minds of the people of Bengal the recol- 
lection of those evil days. 

The members of the government were, on this subject, 
united as one man. Hastings had courted the judges; 
he had found them useful instruments. But he was not 
disposed to make them his own masters, or the masters 
of India. His mind was large; his knowledge of the 
native character most accurate. He saw that the sy stern 
pursued by the Supreme Court was degrading to the 
government and ruinous to the people ; and he resolved 
to oppose it manfully. The consequence was, that the 
friendship, if that be the proper word for such a connec- 
tion, which had existed between him and Impey, was for 
a time completely dissolved. The government placed it- 
self firmly between the tyrannical tribunal and the peo- 
ple. The Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest excesses. 
The Governor-General and all the members of Council 
were served with writs, calling on them to appear before 
the King's justices, and to answer for their public acts. 
This was too much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused 
to obey the call, set at liberty the persons wrongfully 
detained by the Court, and took measures for resisting 
the outrageous proceedings of the sheriffs' officers, if ne- 
cessary, by the sword. But he had in view another device 
which might prevent the necessity of an appeal to arms. 
He was seldom at a loss for an expedient; and he knew 
Impey well. The expedient, in this case, was a very 
simple one, neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey 
was, by act of Parliament, a judge, independent of the 
government of Bengal, and entitled to a salary of eight 
thousand a year. Hastings proposed to make him also a 
judge in the Company's service, removable at the plea- 
sure of the government of Bengal ; and to give him, in 
that capacity, about eight thousand a year more. It was 
understood that, in consideration of this new salary, 
Impey would desist from urging the high pretensions of 



154 WARREN HASTINGS 

his court. If lie did urge these pretensions, the govern- 
ment could, at a moment's notice, eject him from the 
new place which had been created for him. The bargain 
was struck; Bengal was saved; an appeal to force was 
averted; and the Chief Justice was rich, quiet, and 
infamous. 

Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It was 
of a piece with almost every part of his conduct that 
comes under the notice of history. No other such judge 
has dishonored the English ermine, since Jeffreys drank 
himself to death in the Tower. But we cannot agree 
with those who have blamed Hastings for this transac- 
tion. The case stood thus. The negligent manner in 
which the Regulating Act had been framed put it in the 
power of the Chief Justice to throw a great country into 
the most dreadful confusion. He was determined to use 
his power to the utmost, unless he was paid to be still; 
and Hastings consented to pay him. The necessity was 
to be deplored. It is also to be deplored that pirates 
should be able to exact ransom by threatening to make 
their captives walk the plank. But to ransom a captive 
from pirates has always been held a humane and Chris- 
tian act; and it would be absurd to charge the payer 
of the ransom with corrupting the virtue of the corsair. 
This, we seriously think, is a not unfair illustration of 
the relative position of Impey, Hastings, and the people 
of India. Whether it was right in Impey to demand or 
to accept a price for powers which, if they really be- 
longed to him, he could not abdicate, which, if they did 
not belong to him, he ought never to have usurped, and 
which in neither case he could honestly sell, is one ques- 
tion. It is quite another question, whether Hastings 
was not right to give any sum, however large, to any 
man, however worthless, rather than either surrender 
millions of human beings to pillage, or rescue them by 
civil war. 

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, 



WARREN HASTINGS 155 

indeed, be suspected tliat personal aversion to Impey was 
as strong a motive with Francis as regard for the welfare 
of the province. To a mind burning with resentment, it 
might seem better to leave Bengal to the oppressors than 
to redeem it by enriching them. It is not improbable, 
on the other hand, that Hastings may have been the more 
willing to resort to an expedient agreeable to the Chief 
Justice, because that high functionary had already been 
so serviceable, and might, when existing dissensions were 
composed, be serviceable again. 

But it was not on this point alone that Francis was 
now opposed to Hastings. The peace between them 
proved to be only a short and hollow truce, during which 
their mutual aversion was constantly becoming stronger. 
At length an explosion took place. Hastings publicly 
charged Francis with having deceived him, and with 
having induced Barwell to quit the service by insincere 
promises. Then came a dispute, such as frequently 
arises even between honorable men, when they may make 
important agreements by mere verbal communication. 
An impartial historian will probably be of opinion that 
they had misunderstood each other ; but their minds were 
so much embittered that they imputed to each other 
nothing less than deliberate villainy. "I do not," said 
Hastings, in a minute recorded on the Consultations of 
the Government, "I do not trust to Mr. Francis's pro- 
mises of candor, convinced that he is incapable of it. I 
judge of his public conduct by his private, which I have 
found to be void of truth and honor." After the Council 
had risen, Francis put a challenge into the Governor- 
General's hand. It was instantly accepted. They met, 
and fired. Francis was shot through the body. He was 
carried to a neighboring house, where it appeared that 
the wound, though severe, was not mortal. Hastings 
inquired repeatedly after his enemy's health, and pro- 
posed to call on him; but Francis coldly declined the 
visit. He had a proper sense, he said, of the Governor- 



156 WARREN HASTINGS 

General's politeness, but could not consent to any private 
interview. They could meet only at the council board. 

In a very short time it was made signally manifest to 
how great a danger the Governor-General had, on this 
occasion, exposed his country. A crisis arrived with 
which he, and he alone, was competent to deal. It is not 
too much to say that, if he had been taken from the head 
of affairs, the years 1780 and 1781 would have been as 
fatal to our power in Asia as to our power in America. 

The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of apprehen- 
sion to Hastings. The measures which he had adopted 
for the purpose of breaking their power had at first been 
frustrated by the errors of those whom he was compelled 
to employ ; but his perseverance and ability seemed likely 
to be crowned with success, when a far more formidable 
danger showed itself in a distant quarter. 

About thirty years before this time, a Mahommedan 
soldier had begun to distinguish himself in the wars of 
Southern India. His education had been neglected; his 
extraction was humble. His father had been a petty 
officer of revenue ; his grandfather a wandering dervise. 
But though thus meanly descended, though ignorant even 
of the alphabet, the adventurer had no sooner been placed 
at the head of a body of troops than he approved himself 
a man born for conquest and command. Among the 
crowd of chiefs who were struggling for a share of India, 
none could compare with him in the qualities of the cap- 
tain and the statesman. He became a general; he be- 
came a sovereign. Out of the fragments of old princi- 
palities, which had gone to pieces in the general wreck, he 
formed for himself a great, compact, and vigorous empire. 
That empire he ruled with the ability, severity, and vigi- 
lance of Louis the Eleventh. Licentious in his pleasures, 
implacable in his revenge, he had yet enlargement of 
mind enough to perceive how much the prosperity of sub- 
jects adds to the strength of governments. He was an 
oppressor ; but he had at least the merit of protecting his 



WARREN HASTINGS 157 

people against all oppression except his own. He was 
now in extreme old age; but his intellect was as clear, 
and his spirit as high, as in the prime of manhood. 
Such was the great Hyder Ali, the founder of the Ma- 
hommedan kingdom of Mysore, and the most formidable 
enemy with whom the English conquerors of India have 
ever had to contend. 

Had Hastings been governor of Madras, Hyder would 
have been either made a friend, or vigorously encoun- 
tered as an enemy. Unhappily the English authorities 
in the south provoked their powerful neighbor's hostility, 
without being prepared to repel it. On a sudden, an 
army of ninety thousand men, far superior in discipline 
and efficiency to any other native force that could be 
found in India, came pouring through those wild passes 
which, worn by mountain torrents, and dark with jungle, 
lead down from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of 
the Carnatic. This great army was accompanied by a 
hundred pieces of cannon ; and its movements were guided 
by many French officers, trained in the best military 
schools of Europe. 

Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in 
many British garrisons flung down their arms. Some 
forts were surrendered by treachery, and some by despair. 
In a few days the whole open country north of the Cole- 
roon had submitted. The English inhabitants of Madras 
could already see by night, from the top of Mount St. 
Thomas, the eastern sky reddened by a vast semicircle 
of blazing villages. The white villas, to which our coun- 
trymen retire after the daily labors of government and of 
trade, when the cool evening breeze springs up from the 
bay, were now left without inhabitants; for bands of the 
fierce horsemen of Mysore had already been seen prowling 
among the tulip trees, and near the gay verandas. Even 
the town was not thought secure, and the British mer- 
chants and public functionaries made haste to crowd 
themselves behind the cannon of Fort St. George. 



158 WARREN HASTINGS 

There were the means indeed of assembling an army 
which might have defended the presidency, and even driven 
the invader back to his mountains. Sir Hector Munro was 
at the head of one considerable force; Baillie was advan- 
cing with another. United, they might have presented a 
formidable front even to such an enemy as Hyder. But 
the English commanders, neglecting those fundamental 
rules of the military art of which the propriety is obvious 
even to men who had never received a military education, 
deferred their junction, and were separately attacked. 
Baillie 's detachment was destroyed. Munro was forced 
to abandon his baggage, to fling his guns into the tanks, 
and to save himself by a retreat which might be called a 
fliofht. In three weeks from the commencement of the 
war, the British empire in Southern India had been 
brought to the verge of ruin. Only a few fortified 
places remained to us. The glory of our arms had de- 
parted. It was known that a great French expedition 
might soon be expected on the coast of Coromandel. 
England, beset by enemies on every side, was in no con- 
dition to protect such remote dependencies. 

Then it was that the fertile genius and serene courage 
of Hastings achieved their most signal triumph. A swift 
ship, flying before the southwest monsoon, brought the 
evil tidings in a few days to Calcutta. In twenty -four 
hours the Governor-General had framed a complete plan 
of policy adapted to the altered state of affairs. The 
struggle with Hyder was a struggle for life and death. 
All minor objects must be sacrificed to the preservation 
of the Carnatic. The disputes with the Mahrattas must 
be accommodated. A large military force and a supply 
of money must be instantly sent to Madras. But even 
these measures would be insufficient, unless the war, 
hitherto so grossly mismanaged, were placed under the 
direction of a vigorous mind. It was no time for tri- 
fling. Hastings determined to resort to an extreme exer- 
cise of power, to suspend the incapable governor of Fort 



WARREN HASTINGS 159 

St. George, to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose Hyder, 
and to entrust that distinguished general with the whole 
administration of the war. 

In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had 
now recovered from his wound, and had returned to the 
Council, the Governor-General's wise and firm policy 
was approved by the majority of the board. The re- 
inforcements were sent off with great expedition, and 
reached Madras before the French armament arrived in 
the Indian seas. Coote, broken by age and disease, was 
no longer the Coote of Wandewash; but he was still a 
resolute and skilful commander. The progress of Hyder 
was arrested; and in a few months the great victory of 
Porto Novo retrieved the honor of the English arms. 

In the meantime Francis had returned to England, 
and Hastings was now left perfectly unfettered. Wheler 
had gradually been relaxing in his opposition, and, after 
the departure of his vehement and implacable colleague, 
cooperated heartily with the Governor-General, whose 
influence over the British in India, always great, had, by 
the vigor and success of his recent measures, been con- 
siderably increased. 

But, though the difficulties arising from factions within 
the Council were at an end, another class of difficulties 
had become more pressing than ever. The financial em- 
barrassment was extreme. Hastings had to find the 
means, not only of carrying on the government of Bengal, 
but of maintaining a most costly war against both Indian 
and European enemies in the Carnatic, and of making 
remittances to England. A few years before this time 
he had obtained relief by plundering the Mogul and en- 
slaving the Kohillas ; nor were the resources of his fruit- 
ful mind by any means exhausted. 

His first design was on Benares, a city which in wealth, 
population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the fore- 
most of Asia. It was commonly believed that half a 
million of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth 



i6o WARREN HASTINGS 

of lofty alleys, rich witli shrines, and minarets, and bal- 
conies, and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung 
by hundreds. The traveller could scarcely make his way 
through the press of holy mendicants and not less holy 
bulls. The broad and stately flights of steps which 
descended from these swarming haunts to the bathing- 
places along the Ganges were worn every day by the foot- 
steps of an innumerable multitude of worshippers. The 
schools and temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from 
every province where the Brahminical faith was known. 
Hundreds of devotees came thither every month to die : 
for it was believed that a peculiarly happy fate awaited 
the man who should pass from the sacred city into the 
sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which 
allured strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce 
had as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores 
of the venerable stream lay great fleets of vessels laden 
with rich merchandise. From the looms of Benares went 
forth the most delicate silks that adorned the balls of St. 
James's and of Versailles; and, in the bazaars, the muslins 
of Bengal and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the 
jewels of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. This 
rich capital, and the surrounding tract, had long been 
under the immediate rule of a Hindoo Prince, who ren- 
dered homage to the Mogul emperors. During the great 
anarchy of India, the lords of Benares became independ- 
ent of the court of Delhi, but were compelled to submit 
to the authority of the Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by 
this formidable neighbor, they invoked the protection of 
the English. The English protection was given; and at 
length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn treaty, ceded all 
his rights over Benares to the Company. From that 
time the Rajah was the vassal of the government of 
Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy, and engaged to 
send an annual tribute to Fort William. This tribute 
Cheyte Sing, the reigning prince, had paid with strict 
punctuality. 



WARREN HASTINGS i6i 

About the precise nature of the legal relation between 
the Company and the Rajah of Benares there has been 
much warm and acute controversy. On the one side, it 
has been maintained that Cheyte Sing was merely a great 
subject on whom the superior power had a right to call 
for aid in the necessities of the empire. On the other 
side, it has been contended that he was an independent 
prince, that the only claim which the Company had upon 
him was for a fixed tribute, and that while the fixed 
tribute was regularly paid, as it assuredly was, the Eng- 
lish had no more right to exact any further contribu- 
tion from him than to demand subsidies from Holland 
or Denmark. Nothing is easier than to find precedents 
and analogies in favor of either view. 

Our own impression is that neither view is correct. It 
was too much the habit of English politicians to take it 
for granted that there was in India a known and definite 
constitution by which questions of this kind were to be 
decided. The truth is that, during the interval which 
elapsed between the fall of the house of Tamerlane and 
the establishment of the British ascendency, there was no 
such constitution. The old order of things had passed 
away ; the new order of things was not yet formed. All 
was transition, confusion, obscurity. Everybody kept 
his head as he best might, and scrambled for whatever he 
could get. There have been similar seasons in Europe. 
The time of the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire is 
an instance. Who would think of seriously discussing 
the question, What extent of pecuniary aid and of obedi- 
ence Hugh Capet had a constitutional right to demand 
from the Duke of Brittany or the Duke of Normandy ? 
The words "constitutional right" had, in that state of 
society, no meaning. If Hugh Capet laid hands on all 
the possessions of the Duke of Normandy, this might be 
unjust and immoral; but it would not be illegal, in the 
sense in which the ordinances of Charles the Tenth were 
illegal. If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy 



1 62 WARREN HASTINGS 

made war on Hugh Capet, this might be unjust and im- 
moral; but it would not be illegal, in the sense in which 
the expedition of Prince Louis Bonaparte was illegal. 

Very similar to this was the state of India sixty years 
ago. Of the existing governments not a single one could 
lay claim to legitimacy, or could plead any other title 
than recent occupation. There was scarcely a province 
in which the real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty 
were not disjoined. Titles and forms were still retained 
which implied that the heir of Tamerlane was an absolute 
ruler, and that the Nabobs of the provinces were his 
lieutenants. In reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs 
were in some places independent princes. In other places, 
as in Bengal and the Carnatic, they had, like their mas- 
ter, become mere phantoms, and the Company was su- 
preme. Among the Mahrattas, again, the heir of Sevajee 
still kept the title of Kajah; but he was a prisoner, and 
his prime minister, the Peshwa, had become the heredi- 
tary cbief of the state. The Peshwa, in his turn, was 
fast sinking into the same degraded situation to which he 
had reduced the Kajah. It was, we believe, impossible 
to find, from the Himalayas to Mysore, a single govern- 
ment which was at once a government de facto and a 
government dejure^ which possessed the physical means 
of making itseK feared by its neighbors and subjects, and 
which had at the same time the authority derived from 
law and long prescription. 

Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden from 
most of his contemporaries, that such a state of things 
gave immense advantages to a ruler of great talents and 
few scruples. In every international question that could 
arise, he had his option between the de facto ground and 
the dejure ground; and the probability was that one of 
those grounds would sustain any claim that it might be 
convenient for him to make, and enable him to resist any 
claim made by others. In every controversy, accord- 
ingly, he resorted to the plea which suited his immediate 



WARREN HASTINGS 163 

purpose, without troubling himself in the least about 
consistency ; and thus he scarcely ever failed to find what, 
to persons of short memories and scanty information, 
seemed to be a justification for what he wanted to do. 
Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, sometimes 
a monarch. Sometimes the Vizier is a mere deputy, 
sometimes an independent potentate. If it is expedient 
for the Company to show some legal title to the revenues 
of Bengal, the grant under the seal of the Mogul is 
brought forward as an instrument of the highest author- 
ity. When the Mogul asks for the rents which were 
reserved to him by that very grant, he is told that he is 
a mere pageant, that the English power rests on a very 
different foundation from a charter given by him, that he 
is welcome to play at royalty as long as he likes, but that 
he must expect no tribute from the real masters of India. 

It is true that it was in the power of others, as well as 
of Hastings, to practise this legerdemain ; but in the con- 
troversies of governments, sophistry is of little use unless 
it be backed by power. There is a principle which Has- 
tings was fond of asserting in the strongest terms, and 
on which he acted with undeviating steadiness. It is a 
principle which, we must own, though it may be grossly 
abused, can hardly be disputed in the present state of 
public law. It is this, that where an ambiguous question 
arises between two governments, there is, if they cannot 
agree, no appeal except to force, and that the opinion of 
the stronger must prevail. Almost every question was 
ambiguous in India. The English government was the 
strongest in India. The consequences are obvious. The 
English government might do exactly what it chose. 

The English government now chose to wring money 
out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly been convenient to 
treat him as a sovereign prince ; it was now convenient 
to treat him as a subject. Dexterity inferior to that 
of Hastings could easily find, in the general chaos of 
laws and customs, arguments for either course. Hastings 



1 64 WARREN HASTINGS 

wanted a great supply. It was known that Cheyte Sing 
had a large revenue, and it was suspected that he had ac- 
cumulated a treasure. Nor was he a favorite at Calcutta. 
He had, when the Governor-General was in great diffi- 
culties, courted the favor of Francis and Clavering. 
Hastings, who, less, perhaps, from evil passions than from 
policy, seldom left an injury unpunished, was not sorry 
that the fate of Cheyte Sing should teach neighboring 
princes the same lesson which the fate of Nuncomar had 
already impressed on the inhabitants of Bengal. 

In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with 
France, Cheyte Sing was called upon to pay, in addition 
to his fixed tribute, an extraordinary contribution of fifty 
thousand pounds. In 1779 an equal sum was exacted. 
In 1780 the demand was renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the 
hope of obtaining some indulgence, secretly offered the 
Governor-General a bribe of twenty thousand pounds. 
Hastings took the money, and his enemies have main- 
tained that he took it intending to keep it. He certainly 
concealed the transaction, for a time, both from the 
Council in Bengal and from the Directors at home; nor 
did he ever give any satisfactory reason for the conceal- 
ment. Public spirit, or the fear of detection, at last, 
determined him to withstand the temptation. He paid 
over the bribe to the Company's treasury, and insisted 
that the Rajah should instantly comply with the demands 
of the English government. The Rajah, after the fashion 
of his countrymen, shuffled, solicited, and pleaded pov- 
erty. The grasp of Hastings was not to be so eluded. 
He added to the requisition another ten thousand pounds 
as a fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the money. 

The money was paid. But this was not enough. The 
late events in the south of India had increased the finan- 
cial embarrassments of the Company. Hastings was de- 
termined to plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to 
fasten a quarrel on him. Accordingly, the Rajah was 
now required to keep a body of cavalry for the service of 



WARREN HASTINGS 165 

the British government. He objected and evaded. This 
was exactly what the Governor-General wanted. He had 
now a pretext for treating the wealthiest of his vassals 
as a criminal. "I resolved" — these are the words of 
Hastings himself — " to draw from his guilt the means 
of relief of the Company's distresses, to make him pay 
largely for his pardon, or to exact a severe vengeance for 
past delinquency." The plan was simply this, to demand 
larger and larger contributions till the Kajah should be 
driven to remonstrate, then to call his remonstrance a 
crime, and to punish him by confiscating all his pos- 
sessions. 

Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered 
two hundred thousand pounds to propitiate the British 
government. But Hastings replied that nothing less 
than half a million would be accepted. Nay, he began 
to think of selling Benares to Oude, as he had formerly 
sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter was one 
which could not be well managed at a distance; and 
Hastings resolved to visit Benares. 

Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark 
of reverence, came near sixty miles, with his guards, to 
meet and escort the illustrious visitor, and expressed his 
deep concern at the displeasure of the English. He even 
took off his turban, and laid it in the lap of Hastings, a 
gesture which in India marks the most profound sub- 
mission and devotion. Hastings behaved with cold and 
repulsive severity. Having arrived at Benares, he sent 
to the Rajah a paper containing the demands of the gov- 
ernment of Bengal. The Rajah, in reply, attempted to 
clear himself from the accusations brought against him. 
Hastings, who wanted money and not excuses, was not to 
be put off by the ordinary artifices of Eastern negotia- 
tion. He instantly ordered the Rajah to be arrested and 
placed under the custody of two companies of sepoys. 

In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely 
showed his usual judgment. It is possible that, having 



1 66 WARREN HASTINGS 

had little opportunity of personally observing any part of 
the population of India, except the Bengalese, he was not 
fully aware of the difference between their -character and 
that of iiie tribes which inhabit the upper provinces. He 
was now in a land far more favorable to the vigor of the 
human frame than the Delta of the Ganges ; in a land 
fruitful of soldiers, who have been found worthy to fol- 
low English battalions to the charge and into the breach. 
The Eajah was popular among his subjects. His admin- 
istration had been mild ; and the prosperity of the district 
which he governed presented a striking contrast to the 
depressed state of Bahar under our rule, and a still more 
striking contrast to the misery of the provinces which 
were cursed by the tyranny of the Nabob Vizier. The 
national and religious prejudices with which the English 
were regarded throughout India were peculiarly intense 
in the metropolis of the Brahminical superstition. It can 
therefore scarcely be doubted that the Governor-General 
before he outraged the dignity of Cheyte Sing by an 
arrest, ought to have assembled a force capable of bear- 
ing down all opposition. This had not been done. The 
handful of sepoys who attended Hastings would probably 
have been sufficient to overawe Moorshedabad, or the 
Black Town of Calcutta. But they were unequal to a 
conflict with the hardy rabble of Benares. The streets 
surrounding the palace were filled by an immense multi-- 
tude, of whom a large proportion, as is usual in Upper 
India, wore arms. The tumult became a fight, and the 
fight a massacre. The English officers defended them- 
selves with desperate courage against overwhelming num- 
bers, and fell, as became them, sword in hand. The 
sepoys were butchered. The gates were forced. The 
captive prince, neglected by his jailers during the con- 
fusion, discovered an outlet which opened on the precipi- 
tous bank of the Ganges, let himself down to the water 
by a string made of the turbans of his attendants, found 
a boat, and escaped to the opposite shore. 



WARREN HASTINGS 167 

If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought him- 
self into a difficult and perilous situation, it is only just 
to acknowledge that he extricated himself with even more 
than his usual ability and presence of mind. He had 
only fifty men with him. The building in which he had 
taken up his residence was on every side blockaded by 
the insurgents. But his fortitude remained unshaken. 
The Rajah from the other side of the river sent apologies 
and liberal offers. They were not even answered. Some 
subtle and enterprising men were found who undertook 
to pass through the throng of enemies, and to convey the 
intelligence of the late events to the English cantonments. 
It is the fashion of the natives of India to wear large ear- 
rings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid 
aside, lest the precious metal should tempt some gang of 
robbers; and, in place of the ring, a quill or a roll of 
paper is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from closing. 
Hastings placed in the ears of his messengers letters 
rolled up in the smallest compass. Some of these letters 
were addressed to the commanders of the English troops. 
One was written to assure his wife of his safety. One 
was to the envoy whom he had sent to negotiate with the 
Mahrattas. Instructions for the negotiation were needed ; 
and the Governor-General framed them in that situation 
of extreme danger with as much composure as if he had 
been writing in his palace at Calcutta. 

Things, however, were not yet at the worst. An Eng- 
lish officer of more spirit than judgment, eager to dis- 
tinguish himself, made a premature attack on the insur- 
gents beyond the river. His troops were entangled in 
narrow streets, and assailed by a furious poptilation. He 
fell, with many of his men; and the survivors were 
forced to retire. 

This event produced the effect which has never failed 
to follow every check, however slight, sustained in India 
by the English arms. For hundreds of miles round, the 
whole country was in commotion. The entire population 



1 68 WARREN HASTINGS 

of the district of Benares took arms. The fields were 
abandoned by the husbandmen, who thronged to defend 
their prince. The infection spread to Oude. The op- 
pressed people of that province rose up against the Nabob 
Vizier, refused to pay their imposts, and put the revenue 
officers to flight. Even Bahar was ripe for revolt. The 
hopes of Cheyte Sing began to rise. Instead of implor- 
ing mercy in the humble style of a vassal, he began to 
talk the language of a conqueror, and threatened, it was 
said, to sweep the white usurpers out of the land. But 
the English troops were now assembling fast. The 
officers, and even the private men, regarded the Gover- 
nor-General with enthusiastic attachment, and flew to his 
aid with an alacrity which, as he boasted, had never been 
shown on any other occasion. Major Popham, a brave 
and skilful soldier, who had highly distinguished himself 
in the Mahratta war, and in whom the Governor-General 
reposed the greatest confidence, took the command. The 
tumultuary army of the Rajah was put to rout. His 
fastnesses were stormed. In a few hours, above thirty 
thousand men left his standard, and returned to their 
ordinary avocations. The unhappy prince fled from his 
country forever. His fair domain was added to the 
British dominions. One of his relations indeed was ap- 
pointed rajah; but the Rajah of Benares was henceforth 
to be, like the Nabob of Bengal, a mere pensioner. 

By this revolution, an addition of two hundred thou- 
sand pounds a year was made to the revenues of the 
Company. But the immediate relief was not as great as 
had been expected. The treasure laid up by Cheyte Sing 
had been popularly estimated at a million sterling. It 
turned out to be about a fourth part of that sum ; and, 
such as it was, it was seized by the army, and divided as 
prize-money. 

Disappointed in his expectations from Benares, Has- 
tings was more violent than he would otherwise have 
been, in his dealings with Oude. Sujah Dowlah had 



WARREN HASTINGS 169 

long been dead. His son and successor, Asaph-ul-Dow- 
lah, was one of the weakest and most vicious even of 
Eastern princes. His life was divided between torpid 
repose and the most odious forms of sensuality. In his 
court there was boundless waste, throughout his dominions 
wretchedness and disorder. He had been, under the 
skilful management of the English government, gradually 
sinking from the rank of an independent prince to that 
of a vassal of the Company. It was only by the help of 
a British brigade that he could be secure from the aggres- 
sions of neighbors who despised his weakness, and from 
the vengeance of subjects who detested his tyranny. A 
brigade was furnished; and he engaged to defray the 
charge of paying and maintaining it. From that time 
his independence was at an end. Hastings was not a 
man to lose the advantage which he had thus gained. 
The Nabob soon began to complain of the burden which 
he had undertaken to bear. His revenues, he said, were 
falling off; his servants were unpaid; he could no longer 
support the expense of the arrangement which he had 
sanctioned. Hastings would not listen to these represen- 
tations. The Vizier, he said, had invited the govern- 
ment of Bengal to send him troops, and had promised to 
pay for them. The troops had been sent. How long 
the troops were to remain in Oude was a matter not set- 
tled by the treaty. It remained, therefore, . to be settled 
between the contracting parties. But the contracting 
parties differed. Who then must decide? The stronger. 
Hastings also argued that, if the English force was 
withdrawn, Oude would certainly become a prey to an- 
archy, and would probably be overrun by a Mahratta 
army. That the finances of Oude were embarrassed he 
admitted. But he contended, not without reason, that 
the embarrassment was to be attributed to the incapacity 
and vices of Asaph-ul-Dowlah himself, and that, if less 
were spent on the troops, the only effect would be that 
more would be squandered on worthless favorites. 



lyo WARREN HASTINGS 

Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of 
Benares, to visit Lucknow, and there to confer with 
Asaph-ul-Dowlah. But the obsequious courtesy of the 
Nabob Vizier prevented this visit. With a small train 
he hastened to meet the Governor-General. An inter- 
view took place in the fortress which, from the crest of 
the precipitous rock of Chunar, looks down on the waters 
of the Ganges. 

At first sight it might appear impossible that the nego- 
tiation should come to an amicable close. Hastings 
wanted an extraordinary supply of money. Asaph-ul- 
Dowlah wanted to obtain a remission of what he already 
owed. Such a difference seemed to admit of no compro- 
mise. There was, however, one course satisfactory to 
both sides, one course by which it was possible to relieve 
the finances both of Oude and of Bengal ; and that course 
was adopted. It was simply this, that the Governor- 
General and the Nabob Vizier should join to rob a third 
party; and the third party whom they determined to rob 
was the parent of one of the robbers. 

The mother of the late Nabob, and his wife, who was 
the mother of the present Nabob, were known as the 
Begums or Princesses of Oude. They had possessed 
great influence over Sujah Dowlah, and had, at his death, 
been left in possession of a splendid dotation. The 
domains of which they received the rents and adminis- 
tered the government were of wide extent. The treasure 
hoarded by the late Nabob, a treasure which was popu- 
larly estimated at near three millions sterling, was in 
their hands. They continued to occupy his favorite 
palace at Fyzabad, the Beautiful Dwelling ; while Asaph- 
ul-Dowlah held his court in the stately Lucknow, which 
he had built for himself on the shores of the Goomti, and 
had adorned with noble mosques and colleges. 

Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted considerable 
sums from his mother. She had at length appealed to 
the English; and the English had interfered. A solemn 



WARREN HASTINGS 171 

compact had been made, by which she consented to give 
her son some pecuniary assistance, and he in his turn 
promised never to commit any further invasion of her 
rights. This compact was formally guaranteed by the 
government of Bengal. But times had changed; money 
was wanted ; and the power which had given the guarantee 
was not ashamed to instigate the spoiler to excesses such 
that even he shrank from them. 

It was necessary to find some pretext for a confiscation 
inconsistent, not merely with plighted faith, not merely 
with the ordinary rules of humanity and justice, but also 
with that great law of filial piety which, even in the wild- 
est tribes of savages, even in those more degraded com- 
munities which wither under the influence of a corrupt 
half civilization, retains a certain authority over the 
human mind. A pretext was the last thing that Has- 
tings was likely to want. The insurrection at Benares 
had produced disturbances in Oude. These disturbances 
it was convenient to impute to the Princesses. Evidence 
for the imputation there was scarcely any; unless reports 
wandering from one mouth to another, and gaining some- 
thing by every transmission, may be called evidence. 
The accused were furnished with no charge ; they were 
permitted to make no defence; for the Governor-General 
wisely considered that, if he tried them, he might not be 
able to find a ground for plundering them. It was agreed 
between him and the Nabob Vizier that the noble ladies 
should, by a sweeping act of confiscation, be stripped of 
their domains and treasures for the benefit of the Com- 
pany, and that the sums thus obtained should be accepted 
by the government of Bengal in satisfaction of its claims 
on the government of Oude. 

While Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar, he was com- 
pletely subjugated by the clear and commanding intellect 
of the English statesman. But when they had separated, 
the Vizier began to reflect with uneasiness on the engage- 
ment into which he had entered. His mother and grand- 



172 WARREN HASTINGS 

mother protested and implored. His heart, deeply cor- 
rupted by absolute power and licentious pleasures, yet 
not naturally unfeeling, failed him in this crisis. Even 
the English resident at Lucknow, though hitherto devoted 
to Hastings, shrank from extreme measures. But the 
Governor-General was inexorable. He wrote to the resi- 
dent in terms of the greatest severity, and declared that, 
if the spoliation which had been agreed upon were not 
instantly carried into effect, he would himself go to Luck- 
now, and do that from which feebler minds recoil with 
dismay. The resident, thus menaced, waited on His 
Highness and insisted that the treaty of Chunar should 
be carried into full and immediate effect. Asaph-ul- 
Dowlah yielded, making at the same time a solemn pro- 
testation that he yielded to compulsion. The lands were 
resumed; but the treasure was not so easily obtained. It 
was necessary to use violence. A body of the Com- 
pany's troops marched to Fyzabad, and forced the gates 
of the palace. The Princesses were confined to their 
own apartments. But still they refused to submit. Some 
more stringent mode of coercion was to be found. A 
mode was found of which, even at this distance of time, 
we cannot speak without shame and sorrow. 

There were at Fyzabad two ancient men, belonging to 
that unhappy class which a practice, of immemorial anti- 
quity in the East, has excluded from the pleasures of 
love and from the hope of posterity. It has always been 
held in Asiatic courts that beings thus estranged from 
sympathy with their kind are those whom princes may 
most safely trust. Sujah Dowlah had been of this opin- 
ion. He had given his entire confidence to the two 
eunuchs ; and after his death they remained at the head 
of the household of his widow. 

These men were, by the orders of the British govern- 
ment, seized, imprisoned, ironed, starved almost to death, 
in order to extort money from the Princesses. After 
they had been two months in confinement, their health 



WARREN HASTINGS 173 

gave way. They implored permission to take a little 
exercise in the garden of their prison. The officer who 
was in charge of them stated that, if they were allowed 
this indulgence, there was not the smallest chance of their 
escaping, and that their irons really added nothing to the 
security of the custody in which they were kept. He did 
not understand the plan of his superiors. Their object 
in these inflictions was not security but torture ; and all 
mitigation was refused. Yet this was not the worst. It 
was resolved by an English government that these two 
infirm old men should be delivered to the tormentors. 
For that purpose they were removed to Lucknow. What 
horrors their dungeon there witnessed can only be guessed. 
But there remains on the records of Parliament this let- 
ter, written by a British resident to a British soldier : — 

" Sir, the Nabob having determined to inflict corporal 
punishment upon the prisoners under your guard, this is 
to desire that his officers, when they shall come, may 
have free access to the prisoners, and be permitted to do 
with them as they shall see proper." 

While these barbarities were perpetrated at Luck- 
now, the Princesses were still under duress at Fyzabad. 
Food was allowed to enter their apartments only in such 
scanty quantities that their female attendants were in 
danger of perishing with hunger. Month after month 
this cruelty continued, till at length, after twelve hun- 
dred thousand pounds had been wrung out of the Prin- 
cesses, Hastings began to think that he had really got to 
the bottom of their coffers, and that no rigor could extort 
more. Then at length the wretched men who were de- 
tained at Lucknow regained their liberty. When their 
irons were knocked off and the doors of their prison 
opened, their quivering lips, the tears which ran down 
their cheeks, and the thanksgivings which they poured 
forth to the common Father of Mussulmans and Chris- 
tians, melted even the stout hearts of the English warriors 
who stood by. 



174 WARREN HASTINGS 

But we must not forget to do justice to Sir Elijah 
Impey's conduct on this occasion. It was not indeed 
easy for him to intrude himself into a business so entirely 
alien from all his official duties. But there was some- 
thing inexpressibly alluring, we must suppose, in the 
peculiar rankness of the infamy which was then to be got 
at Lucknow. He hurried thither as fast as relays of 
palanquin-bearers could carry him. A crowd of people 
came before him with affidavits against the Begums, ready 
drawn in their hands. Those affidavits he did not read. 
Some of them, indeed, he could not read; for they were 
in the dialects of Northern India, and no interpreter was 
employed. He administered the oath to the deponents, 
with all possible expedition, and asked not a single ques- 
tion, not even whether they had perused the statements 
to which they swore. This work performed, he got again 
into his palanquin, and posted back to Calcutta, to be in 
time for the opening of term. The cause was one which, 
by his own confession, lay altogether out of his jurisdic- 
tion. Under the charter of justice, he had no more 
right to inquire into crimes committed by Asiatics in 
Oude than the Lord President of the Court of Session of 
Scotland to hold an assize at Exeter. He had no right 
to try the Begums, nor did he pretend to try them. 
With what object, then, did he undertake so long a 
journey? Evidently in order that he might give, in an 
irregular manner, that sanction which in a regular man- 
ner he could not give, to the crimes of those who had 
recently hired him ; and in order that a confused mass of 
testimony which he did not sift, which he did not even 
read, might acquire an authority not properly belonging 
to it, from the signature of the highest judicial function- 
ary in India. 

The time was approaching, however, when he was to 
be stripped of that robe which has never, since the Re- 
volution, been disgraced so foully as by him. The state 
of India had for some time occupied much of the atten- 



WARREN HASTINGS 175 

tion of the British Parliament. Towards the close of the 
American war, two committees of the Commons sat on 
Eastern affairs. In one Edmund Burke took the lead. 
The other was under the presidency of the able and ver- 
satile Henry Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scotland. 
Great as are the changes which, during the last sixty 
years, have taken place in our Asiatic dominions, the 
reports which those committees laid on the table of the 
House will still be found most interesting and instructive. 
There was as yet no connection between the Company 
and either of the great parties in the state. The minis- 
ters had no motive to defend Indian abuses. On the 
contrary, it was for their interest to show, if possible, 
that the government and patronage of our Oriental empire 
might, with advantage, be transferred to themselves. 
The votes, therefore, which, in consequence of the reports 
made by the two committees, were passed by the Com- 
mons, breathed the spirit of stern and indignant justice. 
The severest epithets were applied to several of the mea- 
sures of Hastings, especially to the Eohilla war ; and it 
was resolved, on the motion of Mr. Dundas, that the 
Company ought to recall a Governor-General who had 
brought such calamities on the Indian people, and such 
dishonor on the British name. An act was passed for 
limiting the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The 
bargain which Hastings had made with the Chief Justice 
was condemned in the strongest terms ; and an address 
was presented to the King, praying that Impey might be 
ordered home to answer for his misdeeds. 

Impey was recalled by a letter from the Secretary of 
State. But the proprietors of India Stock resolutely 
refused to dismiss Hastings from their service, and passed 
a resolution affirming, what was undeniably true, that 
they were entrusted by law with the right of naming and 
removing their Governor-General, and that they were not 
bound to obey the directions of a single branch of the 
legislature with respect to such nomination or removal. 



176 WARREN HASTINGS 

Thus supported by his employers, Hastings remained 
at the head of the government of Bengal till the spring 
of 1785. His administration, so eventful and stormy, 
closed in almost perfect quiet. In the Council there was 
no regular opposition to his measures. Peace was re- 
stored to India. The Mahratta war had ceased. Hyder 
was no more. A treaty had been concluded with his son 
Tippoo; and the Carnatic had been evacuated by the 
armies of Mysore. Since the termination of the Ameri- 
can war, England had no European enemy or rival in the 
Eastern seas. 

On a general review of the long administration of 
Hastings, it is impossible to deny that, against the great 
crimes by which it is blemished, we have to set off great 
public services. England had passed through a perilous 
crisis. She still, indeed, maintained her place in the 
foremost rank of European powers ; and the manner in 
which she had defended herself against fearful odds had 
inspired surrounding nations with a high opinion both of 
her spirit and of her strength. Nevertheless, in every 
part of the world, except one, she had been a loser. Not 
only had she been compelled to acknowledge the inde- 
pendence of thirteen colonies peopled by her children, 
and to conciliate the Irish by giving up the right of 
legislating for them ; but, in the Mediterranean, in the 
Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the continent 
of America, she had been compelled to cede the fruits of 
her victories in former wars. Spain regained Minorca 
and Florida; France regained Senegal, Goree, and sev- 
eral West Indian Islands. The only quarter of the world 
in which Britain had lost nothing was the quarter in 
which her interests had been committed to the care of 
Hastings, In spite of the utmost exertions both of 
European and Asiatic enemies, the power of our country 
in the East had been greatly augmented. Benares was 
subjected; the Nabob Vizier reduced to vassalage. That 
our influence had been thus extended, nay, that Fort 



WARREN HASTINGS 177 

William and Fort St. George had not been occupied by- 
hostile armies, was owing, if we may trust the general 
voice of the English in India, to the skill and resolution 
of Hastings. 

His internal administration, with all its blemishes, 
gives him a title to be considered as one of the most re- 
markable men in our history. He dissolved the double 
government. He transferred the direction of affairs to 
English hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, he educed 
at least a rude and imperfect order. The whole organi- 
zation by which justice was dispensed, revenue collected, 
peace maintained throughout a territory not inferior in 
population to the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth or of 
the Emperor Joseph, was formed and superintended by 
him. He boasted that every public office, without excep- 
tion, which existed when he left Bengal was his creation. 
It is quite true that this system, after all the improve- 
ments suggested by the experience of sixty years, still 
needs improvement, and that it was at first far more 
defective than it now is. But whoever seriously con- 
siders what it is to construct from the beginning the 
whole of a machine so vast and complex as a government 
will allow that what Hastings effected deserves high 
admiration. To compare the most celebrated European 
ministers to him seems to us as unjust as it would be to 
compare the best baker in London with Eobinson Crusoe, 
who, before he could bake a single loaf, had to make his 
plough and his harrow, his fences and his scarecrows, his 
sickle and his flail, his mill and his oven. 

The just fame of Hastings rises still higher when we 
reflect that he was not bred a statesman; that he was 
sent from school to a counting-house; and that he was 
employed during the prime of his manhood as a commer- 
cial agent, far from all intellectual society. 

Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, 
when placed at the head of affairs, he could apply for 
assistance were persons who owed as little as himself, or 



178 WARREN HASTINGS 

less than himself, to education. A minister in Europe 
finds himself, on the first day on which he commences his 
functions, surrounded by experienced public servants, the 
depositaries of official traditions. Hastings had no such 
help. His own reflection, his own energy, were to supply 
the place of all Downing Street and Somerset House. 
Having had no facilities for learning, he was forced to 
teach. He had first to form himself, and then to form 
his instruments; and this not in a single department, but 
in all the departments of the administration. 

It must be added that, while engaged in this most 
arduous task, he was constantly trammelled by orders 
from home, and frequently borne down by a majority in 
Council. The preservation of an empire from a formid- 
able combination of foreign enemies, the construction of 
a government in all its parts, were accomplished by him, 
while every ship brought out bales of censure from his 
employers, and while the records of every consultation 
were filled with acrimonious minutes by his colleagues. 
We believe that there never was a public man whose 
tejjjrper was so severely tried; not Marlborough, when 
thwarted by the Dutch Deputies; not Wellington, when 
he had to deal at once with the Portuguese Regency, the 
Spanish Juntas, and Mr. Perceval. But the temper of 
Hastings was equal to almost any trial. It was not 
sweet; but it was calm. Quick and vigorous as his in- 
tellect was, the patience with which he endured the most 
cruel vexations, till a remedy could be found, resembled 
the patience of stupidity. He seems to have been capable 
of resentment, bitter and long-enduring ; yet his resent- 
ment so seldom hurried him into any blunder that it may 
be doubted whether what appeared to be revenge was 
anything but policy. 

The effect of this singular equanimity was that he 
always had the full command of all the resources of one 
of the most fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly 
no complication of perils and embarrassments could per- 



WARREN HASTINGS 179 

plex him. For every difficulty he had a contr,ivance 
ready; and, whatever may be thought of the justice and 
humanity of some of his contrivances, it is certain that 
they seldom failed to serve the purpose for which they 
were designed. 

Together with this extraordinary talent for devising 
expedients, Hastings possessed, in a very high degree, 
another talent scarcely less necessary to a man in his 
situation, we mean the talent for conducting political 
controversy. It is as necessary to an English statesman 
in the East that he should be able to write, as it is to a 
minister in this country that he should be able to speak. 
It is chiefly by the oratory of a public man here that the 
nation judges of his powers. It is from the letters and 
reports of a public man in India that the dispensers of 
patronage form their estimate of him. In each case, the 
talent which receives peculiar encouragement is developed, 
perhaps at the expense of the other powers. In this 
country, we sometimes hear men speak above their abili- 
ties. It is not very unusual to find gentlemen in the 
Indian service who write above their abilities. The 
English politician is a little too much of a debater; the 
Indian politician a little too much of an essayist. 

Of the numerous servants of the Company who have 
distino:uished themselves as framers of minutes and dis- 
patches, Hastings stands at the head. He was indeed 
the person who gave to the official writing of the Indian 
governments the character which it still retains. He 
was matched against no common antagonist. But even 
Francis was forced to acknowledge, with sullen and re- 
sentful candor, that there was no contending against the 
pen of Hastings. And, in truth, the Governor-General's 
power of making out a case, of perplexing what it was 
inconvenient that people should understand, and of setting 
in the clearest point of view whatever would bear the 
light, was incomparable. His style must be praised with 
some reservation. It was in general forcible, pure, and 



i8o WARREN HASTINGS 

polislied; but it was sometimes, thougli not often, turgid, 
and, on one or two occasions, even bombastic. Perhaps 
the fondness of Hastings for Persian literature may have 
tended to corrupt his taste. 

And since we have referred to his literary tastes, it 
would be most unjust not to praise the judicious encour- 
agement which, as a ruler, he gave to liberal studies and 
curious researches. His patronage was extended, with 
prudent generosity, to voyages, travels, experiments, 
publications. He did little, it is true, towards introdu- 
cing into India the learning of the West. To make the 
young natives of Bengal familiar with Milton and Adam 
Smith, to substitute the geography, astronomy, and sur- 
gery of Europe for the dotages of the Brahminical super- 
stition, or for the imperfect science of ancient Greece 
transfused through Arabian expositions — this was a 
scheme reserved to crown the beneficent administration 
of a far more virtuous ruler. Still, it is impossible to 
refuse high commendation to a man who, taken from a 
ledger to govern an empire, overwhelmed by public busi- 
ness, surrounded by people as busy as himself, and sepa- 
rated by thousands of leagues from almost all literary 
society, gave, both by his example and by his munifi- 
cence, a great impulse to learning. In Persian and 
Arabic literature he was deeply skilled. With the San- 
skrit he was not himself acquainted; but those who first 
brought that language to the knowledge of European stu- 
dents owed much to his encouragement. It was under 
his protection that the Asiatic Society commenced its 
honorable career. That distinguished body selected him 
to be its first president; but, with excellent taste and 
feeling, he declined the honor in favor of Sir William 
Jones. But the chief advantage which the students of 
Oriental letters derived from his patronage remains to be 
mentioned. The Pundits of Bengal had always looked 
with great jealousy on the attempts of foreigners to pry 
into those mysteries which were locked up in the sacred 



WARREN HASTINGS i8: 

dialect. The Brahminical religion had been persecuted 
by the Mahommedans. What the Hindoos knew of the 
spirit of the Portuguese government might warrant them 
in apprehending persecution from Christians. That ap- 
prehension, the wisdom and moderation of Hastings re- 
moved. He was the first foreign ruler who succeeded in 
gaining the confidence of the hereditary priests of India, 
and who induced them to lay open to English scholars the 
secrets of the old Brahminical theology and jurisprudence. 
It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great art of 
inspiring large masses of human beings with confidence 
and attachment, no ruler ever surpassed Hastings. If he 
had made himself popular with the English by giving up 
the Bengalese to extortion and oppression, or if, on the 
other hand, he had conciliated the Bengalese and alien- 
ated the English, there would have been no cause for 
wonder. What is peculiar to him is that, being the chief 
of a small band of strangers who exercised boundless 
power over a great indigenous population, he made him- 
self beloved both by the subject many and by the domi- 
nant few. The affection felt for him by the civil service 
was singularly ardent and constant. Through all his 
disasters and perils, his brethren stood by him with stead- 
fast loyalty. The army, at the same time, loved him as 
armies have seldom loved any but the greatest chiefs who 
have led them to victory. Even in his disputes with dis- 
tinguished military men, he could always count on the 
support of the military profession. While such was his 
empire over the hearts of his countrymen, he enjoyed 
among the natives a popularity such as other governors 
have perhaps better merited, but such as no other gover- 
nor has been able to attain. He spoke their vernacular 
dialects with facility and precision. He was intimately 
acquainted with their feelings and usages. On one or 
two occasions, for great ends, he deliberately acted in 
defiance of their opinion ; but on such occasions he gained 
more in their respect than he lost in their love. In gen- 



1 82 WARREN HASTINGS 

eral, he carefully avoided all that could shock their na- 
tional or religious prejudices. His administration was 
indeed in many respects faulty; but the Bengalee stan- 
dard of good government was not high. Under the 
Nabobs, the hurricane of Mahratta cavalry had passed 
annually over the rich alluvial plain. But even the 
Mahratta shrank from a conflict with the mighty children 
of the sea; and the immense rice harvests of the Lower 
Ganges were safely gathered in, under the protection of 
the English sword. The first English conquerors had 
been more rapacious and merciless even than the Mahrat- 
tas ; but that generation had passed away. Defective as 
was the police, heavy as were the public burdens, it is 
probable that the oldest man in Bengal could not recol- 
lect a season of equal security and prosperity. For the 
first time within living memory, the province was placed 
under a government strong enough to prevent others from 
robbing, and not inclined to play the robber itself. 
These things inspired good will. At the same time, the 
constant success of Hastings and the manner in which he 
extricated himself from every difficulty made him an 
object of superstitious admiration; and the more than 
regal splendor which he sometimes displayed dazzled a 
people who have much in common with children. Even 
now, after the lapse of more than fifty years, the natives 
of India still talk of him as the greatest of the English ; 
and nurses sing children to sleep with a jingling ballad 
about the fleet horses and richly caparisoned elephants of 
Sahib Warren Hostein. 

The gravest offences of which Hastings was guilty did 
not affect his popularity with the people of Bengal ; for 
those offences were committed against neighboring states. 
Those offences, as our readers must have perceived, we 
are not disposed to vindicate; yet, in order that the cen- 
sure may be justly apportioned to the transgression, it is 
fit that the motive of the criminal should be taken into 
consideration. The motive which prompted the worst 



WARREN HASTINGS 183 

acts of Hastings was misdirected and ill-regulated public 
spirit. The rules of justice, the sentiments of humanity, 
the plighted faith of treaties, were in his view as nothing 
when opposed to the immediate interest of the state. 
This is no justification, according to the principles either 
of morality, or of what we believe to be identical with 
morality, namely, far-sighted policy. Nevertheless, the 
common sense of mankind, which in questions of this sort 
seldom goes far wrong, will always recognize a distinc- 
tion between crimes which originate in an inordinate zeal 
for the commonwealth, and crimes which originate in sel- 
fish cupidity. To the benefit of this distinction Hastings 
is fairly entitled. There is, we conceive, no reason to 
suspect that the Rohilla war, the revolution of Benares, 
or the spoliation of the Princesses of Oude, added a rupee 
to his fortune. We will not affirm that, in all pecuniary 
dealings, he showed that punctilious integrity, that dread 
of the faintest appearance of evil, which is now the glory 
of the Indian civil service. But when the school in 
which he had been trained and the temptations to which 
he was exposed are considered, we are more inclined to 
praise him for his general uprightness with respect to 
money, than rigidly to blame him for a few transactions 
which would now be called indelicate and irregular, but 
which even now would hardly be designated as corrupt. 
A rapacious man he certainly was not. Had he been so 
he would infallibly have returned to his country the rich- 
est subject in EuropCo We speak within compass when 
we say that, without applying any extraordinary pres- 
sure, he might easily have obtained from the zemindars 
of the Company's provinces and from neighboring princes, 
in the course of thirteen years, more than three millions 
sterling, and might have outshone the splendor of Carl- 
ton House and of the Palais Royal. He brought home 
a fortune such as a Governor-General, fond of state and 
careless of thrift, might easily, during so long a tenure of 
office, save out of his legal salary. Mrs. Hastings, we 



1 84 WARREN HASTINGS 

are afraid, was less scrupulous. It was generally believed 
that she accepted presents with great alacrity, and that 
she thus formed, without the connivance of her husband, 
a private hoard amounting to several lacs of rupees. We 
are the more inclined to give credit to this story because 
Mr. Gleig, who cannot but have heard it, does not, as 
far as we have observed, notice or contradict it. 

The influence of Mrs. Hastings over her husband was 
indeed such that she might easily have obtained much 
larger sums than she was ever accused of receiving. At 
length her health began to give way ; and the Governor- 
General, much against his will, was compelled to send 
her to England. He seems to have loved her with that 
love which is peculiar to men of strong minds, to men 
whose affection is not easily won or widely diffused. The 
talk of Calcutta ran for some time on the luxurious man- 
ner in which he fitted up the round-house of an Indiaman 
for her accommodation, on the profusion of sandal-wood 
and carved ivory which adorned her cabin, and on the 
thousands of rupees which had been expended in* order to 
procure for her the society of an agreeable female com- 
panion during the voyage. We ma.y remark here that 
the letters of Hastings to his wife are exceedingly char- 
acteristic. They are tender, and full of indications of 
esteem and confidence : but, at the same time, a little more 
ceremonious than is usual in so intimate a relation. The 
solemn courtesy with which he compliments his "elegant 
Marian " reminds us now and then of the dignified air 
with which Sir Charles Grandison bowed over Miss 
Byron's hand in the cedar parlor. 

After some months Hastings prepared to follow his 
wife to England. When it was announced that he was 
about to quit his office, the feeling of the society which 
he had so long governed manifested itself by many signs. 
Addresses poured in from Europeans and Asiatics, from 
civil functionaries, soldiers, and traders. On the day on 
which he delivered up the keys of office, a crowd of 



WARREN HASTINGS 185 

friends and admirers formed a lane to the quay where he 
embarked. Several barges escorted him far down the 
river ; and some attached friends refused to quit him till 
the low coast of Bengal was fading from the view, and 
till the pilot was leaving the ship. 

Of his voyage little is known, except that he amused 
himself with books and with his pen; and that among 
the compositions by which he beguiled the tediousness of 
that long leisure, was a pleasing imitation of Horace's 
Otium Divos rogat. This little poem was inscribed to 
Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, a man of whose 
integrity, humanity, and honor it is impossible to speak 
too highly ; but who, like some other excellent members 
of the civil service, extended to the conduct of his friend 
Hastings an indulgence of which his own conduct never 
stood in need. 

The voyage was, for those times, very speedy. Has- 
tings was little more than four months on the sea. In 
June, 1785, he landed at Plymouth, posted to London, 
appeared at Court, paid his respects in Leadenhall Street, 
and then retired with his wife to Cheltenham. 

He was greatly pleased with his reception. The King 
treated him with marked distinction. The Queen, who 
had already incurred much censure on account of the 
favor which, in spite of the ordinary severity of her vir- 
tue, she had shown to the "elegant Marian," was not less 
gracious to Hastings. The Directors received him in a 
solemn sitting ; and their chairman read to him a vote of 
thanks which they had passed without one dissentient 
voice. "I find myself," said Hastings, in a letter writ- 
ten about a quarter of a year after his arrival in Eng- 
land, — "I find myself everywhere, and universally, treated 
with evidences, apparent even to my own observation, 
that I possess the good opinion of my country." 

The confident and exulting tone of his correspondence 
about this time is the more remarkable, because he had 
already received ample notice of the attack which was in 



1 86 WARREN HASTINGS 

preparation. Within a week after he landed at Ply- 
mouth, Burke gave notice in the House of Commons of 
a motion seriously affecting a gentleman lately returned 
from India. The session, however, was then so far ad- 
vanced that it was impossible to enter on so extensive 
and important a subject. 

Hastings, it is clear, was not sensible of the danger of 
his position. Indeed that sagacity, that judgment, that 
readiness in devising expedients, which had distinguished 
him in the East, seemed now to have forsaken him ; not 
that his abilities were at all impaired ; not that he was 
not still the same man who had triumphed over Francis 
and Nuncomar, who had made the Chief Justice and the 
Nabob Vizier his tools, who had deposed Cheyte Sing, 
and repelled Hyder Ali. But an oak, as Mr. Grattan 
finely said, should not be transplanted at fifty. A man 
who, having left England when a boy, returns to it after 
thirty or forty years passed in India, will find, be his 
talents what they may, that he has much both to learn 
and to unlearn before he can take a place among English 
statesmen. The working of a representative system, the 
war of parties, the arts of debate, the influence of the 
press, are startling novelties to him. Surrounded on 
every side by new machines and new tactics, he is as 
much bewildered as Hannibal would have been at Water- 
loo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His very acuteness 
deludes him. His very vigor causes him to stumble. 
The more correct his maxims, when applied to the state 
of society to which he is accustomed, the more certain 
they are to lead him astray. This was strikingly the 
case with Hastings. In India he had a bad hand; but 
he was master of the game, and he won every stake. In 
England he held excellent cards, if he had known how to 
play them ; and it was chiefly by his own errors that he 
was brought to the verge of ruin. 

Of all his errors the most serious was perhaps the 
choice of a champion. Clive, in similar circumstances, 



WARREN HASTINGS 187 

had made a singularly happy selection. He put himself 
into the hands of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Lough- 
borough, one of the few great advocates who have also 
been great in the House of Commons. To the defence 
of Clive, therefore, nothing was wanting, neither learn- 
ing nor knowledge of the world, neither forensic acute- 
ness nor that eloquence which charms political assemblies. 
Hastings entrusted his interests to a very different per- 
son, a major in the Bengal army, named Scott. This 
gentleman had been sent over from India some time 
before as the agent of the Governor- General. It was 
rumored that his services were rewarded with Oriental 
munificence; and we believe that he received much more 
than Hastings could conveniently spare. The Major 
obtained a seat in Parliament, and was there regarded as 
the organ of his employer. It was evidently impossible 
that a gentleman so situated could speak with the author- 
ity which belongs to an independent position. Nor had 
the agent of Hastings the talents necessary for obtaining 
the ear of an assembly which, accustomed to listen to 
great orators, had naturally become fastidious. He was 
always on his legs ; he was very tedious ; and he had only 
one topic, the merits and wrongs of Hastings. Every- 
body who knows the House of Commons will easily guess 
what followed. The Major was soon considered as the 
greatest bore of his time. His exertions were not con- 
fined to Parliament. There was hardly a day on which 
the newspapers did not. contain some puff upon Hastings, 
signed Asiaticus or Bengalensis, but known to be written 
by the indefatigable Scott ; and hardly a month in which 
some bulky pamphlet on the same subject, and from the 
same pen, did not pass to the trunk-makers and the 
pastry-cooks. As to this gentleman's capacity for con- 
ducting a delicate question through Parliament, our read- 
ers will want no evidence beyond that which they will 
find in letters preserved in these volumes. We will give 
a single specimen of his temper and judgment. He 



1 88 WARREN HASTINGS 

designated the greatest man then living as "that reptile 
Mr. Burke." 

In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, the gen- 
eral aspect of affairs was favorable to Hastings. The 
King was on his side. The Company and its servants 
were zealous in his cause. Among public men he had 
many ardent friends. Such were Lord Mansfield, who 
had outlived the vigor of his body, but not that of his 
mind; and Lord Lansdowne, who, though unconnected 
with any party, retained the importance which belongs 
to great talents and knowledge. The ministers were 
generally believed to be favorable to the late Governor- 
General. They owed their power to the clamor which 
had been raised against Mr. Fox's East India Bill. The 
authors of that bill, when accused of invading vested 
rights, and of setting up powers unknown to the Consti- 
tution, had defended themselves by pointing to the crimes 
of Hastings, and by arguing that abuses so extraordinary 
justified extraordinary measures. Those who, by oppos- 
ing that bill, had raised themselves to the head of affairs 
would naturally be inclined to extenuate the evils which 
had been made the plea for administering so violent a 
remedy; and such, in fact, was their general disposition. 
The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in particular, whose great 
place and force of intellect gave him a weight in the 
government inferior only to that of Mr. Pitt, espoused 
the cause of Hastings with indecorous violence. Mr. 
Pitt, though he had censured many parts of the Indian 
system, had studiously abstained from saying a word 
against the late chief of the Indian government. To 
Major Scott, indeed, the young minister had in private 
extolled Hastings as a great, a wonderful man, who had 
the highest claims on the government. There was only 
one objection to granting all that so eminent a servant of 
the public could ask. The resolution of censure still re- 
mained on the Journals of the House of Commons. That 
resolution was, indeed, unjust; but, till it was rescinded. 



WARREN HASTINGS 189 

could the minister advise the King to bestow any mark 
of approbation on the person censured? If Major Scott 
is to be trusted, Mr. Pitt declared that this was the only 
reason which prevented the advisers of the Crown from 
conferring a peerage on the late Governor-General. Mr. 
Dundas was the only important member of the adminis- 
tration who was deeply committed to a different view of 
the subject. He had moved the resolution which created 
the difficulty; but even from him little was to be appre- 
hended. Since he had presided over the committee on 
Eastern affairs, great changes had taken place. He was 
surrounded by new allies ; he had fixed his hopes on new 
objects; and whatever may have been his good qualities, 
— and he had many, — flattery itself never reckoned 
rigid consistency in the number. 

From the ministry, therefore, Hastings had every rea- 
son to expect support; and the ministry was very power- 
ful. The Opposition was loud and vehement against him. 
But the Opposition, though formidable from the wealth 
and influence of some of its members, and from the 
admirable talents and eloquence of others, was outnum- 
bered in Parliament, and odious throughout the country. 
Nor, as far as we can judge, was the Opposition generally 
desirous to engage in so serious an undertaking as the 
impeachment of an Indian Governor. Such an impeach- 
ment must last for years. It must impose on the chiefs 
of the party an immense load of labor. Yet it could 
scarcely, in any manner, affect the event of the great 
political game. The followers of the coalition were there- 
fore more inclined to revile Hastings than to prosecute 
him. They lost no opportunity of coupling his name 
with the names of the most hateful tyrants of whom his- 
tory makes mention. The wits of Brooks's aimed their 
keenest sarcasms both at his public and at his domestic 
life. Some fine diamonds which he had presented, as it 
was rumored, to the royal family, and a certain richly 
carved ivory bed which the Queen had done him the 



I90 WARREN HASTINGS 

honor to accept from him, were favorite subjects of ridi- 
cule. One lively poet proposed that the great acts of the 
fair Marian's present husband should be immortalized by 
the pencil of his predecessor; and that Imhoff should be 
employed to embellish the House of Commons with paint- 
ings of the bleeding Rohillas, of Nuncomar swinging, of 
Cheyte Sing letting himself down to the Ganges. An- 
other, in an exquisitely humorous parody of Virgil's third 
eclogue, propounded the question what that mineral could 
be of which the rays had power to make the most austere 
of princesses the friend of a wanton. A third described, 
with gay malevolence, the gorgeous appearance of Mrs. 
Hastings at St. James's, the galaxy of jewels, torn from 
Indian Begums, which adorned her headdress, her neck- 
lace gleaming with future votes, and the depending ques- 
tions that shone upon her ears. Satirical attacks of this 
description, and perhaps a motion for a vote of censure, 
would have satisfied the great body of the Opposition. 
But there were two men whose indignation was not to be 
so appeased, Philip Francis and Edmund Burke. 

Francis had recently entered the House of Commons, 
and had already established a character there for industry 
and ability. He labored indeed under one most unfor- 
tunate defect, want of fluency. But he occasionally ex- 
pressed himself with a dignity and energy worthy of the 
greatest orators. Before he had been many days in Par- 
liament, he incurred the bitter dislike of Pitt, who con- 
stantly treated him with as much asperity as the laws of 
debate would allow. Neither lapse of years nor change 
of scene had mitigated the enmities which Francis had 
brought back from the East. After his usual fashion, 
he mistook his malevolence for virtue, nursed it, as 
preachers tell us that we ought to nurse our good disposi- 
tions, and paraded it, on all occasions, with Pharisaical 
ostentation. 

The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far 
purer. Men unable to understand the elevation of his 



WARREN HASTINGS 191 

mind have tried to find out some discreditable motive for 
the vehemence and pertinacity which he showed on this 
occasion. But they have altogether failed. The idle 
story that he had some private slight to revenge has long 
been given up, even by the advocates of Hastings. Mr. 
Gleig supposes that Burke was actuated by party spirit, 
that he retained a bitter remembrance of the fall of the 
coalition, that he attributed that fall to the exertions of 
the East India interest, and that he considered Hastings 
as the head and the representative of that interest. This 
explanation seems to be sufficiently refuted by a reference 
to dates. The hostility of Burke to Hastings commenced 
long before the coalition, and lasted long after Burke 
had become a strenuous supporter of those by whom the 
coalition had been defeated. It began when Burke and 
Fox, closely allied together, were attacking the influence 
of the Crown, and calling for peace with the American 
republic. It continued till Burke, alienated from Fox, 
and loaded with the favors of the Crown, died, preaching 
a crusade against the French republic. We surely can- 
not attribute to the events of 1784 an enmity which began 
in 1781, and which retained undiminished force long after 
persons far more deeply implicated than Hastings in the 
events of 1784 had been cordially forgiven. And why 
should we look for any other explanation of Burke's con- 
duct than that which we find on the surface ? The plain 
truth is that Hastings had committed some great crimes, 
and that the thought of those crimes made the blood of 
Burke boil in his veins. For Burke was a man in whom 
compassion for suffering and hatred of injustice and 
tyranny were as strong as in Las Casas or Clarkson. 
And although in him, as in Las Casas and in Clarkson, 
these noble feelings were alloyed with the infirmity which 
belongs to human nature, he is, like them, entitled to this 
great praise, that he devoted years of intense labor to the 
service of a people with whom he had neither blood nor 
language, neither religion nor manners, in common, and 



192 WARREN HASTINGS 

from whom no requital, no thanks, no applause could be 
expected. 

His knowledge of India was such as few, even of those 
Europeans who have passed many years in that country, 
have attained, and such as certainly was never attained 
by any public man who had not quitted Europe. He 
had studied the history, the laws, and the usages of the 
East with an industry such as is seldom found united to 
so much genius and so much sensibility. Others have 
perhaps been equally laborious, and have collected an 
equal mass of materials. But the manner in which 
Burke brought his higher powers of intellect to work on 
statements of facts, and on tables of figures, was peculiar 
to himself. In every part of those huge bales of Indian 
information which repelled almost all other readers, his 
mind, at once philosophical and poetical, found some- 
thing to instruct or to delight. His reason analyzed and 
digested those vast and shapeless masses; his imagina- 
tion animated and colored them. Out of darkness, and 
dulness, and confusion, he formed a multitude of ingen- 
ious theories and vivid pictures. He had, in the highest 
degree, that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in 
the past and in the future, in the distant and in the un- 
real. India and its inhabitants were not to him, as to 
most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, but a 
real country and a real people. The burning sun, the 
strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree, the 
rice-field, the tank, the huge trees, older than the Mogul 
empire, under which the village crowds assemble, the 
thatched roof of the peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the 
mosque where the imaum prays with his face to Mecca, 
the drums, and banners, and gaudy idols, the devotee 
swinging in the air, the graceful maiden, with the pitcher 
on her head, descending the steps to the riverside, the 
black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, 
the turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and the 
silver maces, the elephants with their canopies of state, 



WARREN HASTINGS 193 

the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, and the close litter 
of the noble lady, — all these things were to him as the 
objects amidst which his own life had been passed, as the 
objects which lay on the road between Beaconsfield and 
St. James's Street. All India was present to the eye of 
his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and per- 
fumes at the feet of sovereigns to the wild moor where 
the gypsy camp was pitched, from the bazaar, humming 
like a beehive with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to 
the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of 
iron rings to scare away the hyenas. He had just as 
lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord 
George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuncomar 
as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppression in Bengal 
was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of 
London. 

He saw that Hastings had been guilty of some most 
unjustifiable acts. All that followed was natural and 
necessary in a mind like Burke's. His imagination and 
his passions, once excited, hurried him beyond the bounds 
of justice and good sense. His reason, powerful as it 
was, became the slave of feelings which it should have 
controlled. His indignation, virtuous in its origin, ac- 
quired too much of the character of personal aversion. 
He could see no mitigating circumstance, no redeeming 
merit. His temper, which, though generous and affec- 
tionate, had always been irritable, had now been made 
almost savage by bodily infirmities and mental vexations. 
Conscious of great powers and great virtues, he found 
himself, in age and poverty, a mark for the hatred of a 
perfidious court and a deluded people. In Parliament 
his eloquence was out of date. A young generation, 
which knew him not, had filled the House. Whenever 
he rose to speak, his voice was drowned by the unseemly 
interruption of lads who were in their cradles when his 
orations on the Stamp Act called forth the applause of 
the great Earl of Chatham. These things had produced 



194 WARREN HASTINGS 

on his proud and sensitive spirit an effect at which we 
cannot wonder. He could no longer discuss any ques- 
tion with calmness, or make allowance for honest differ- 
ences of opinion. Those who think that he was more 
violent and acrimonious in debates about India than on 
other occasions are ill informed respecting the last years 
of his life. In the discussions on the Commercial Treaty 
with the Court of Versailles, on the Eegency, on the 
French Revolution, he showed even more virulence than 
in conducting the impeachment. Indeed, it may be re- 
marked that the very persons who called him a mischie- 
vous maniac, for condemning in burning words the Rohilla 
war and the spoliation of the Begums, exalted him into 
a prophet as soon as he began to declaim, with greater 
vehemence, and not with greater reason, against the 
taking of the Bastile and the insults offered to Marie 
Antoinette. To us he appears to have been neither a 
maniac in the former case nor a prophet in the latter, 
but in both cases a great and good man, led into extra- 
vagance by a sensibility which domineered over all his 
faculties. 

It may be doubted whether the personal antipathy of 
Francis, or the nobler indignation of Burke, would have 
led their party to adopt extreme measures against Has- 
tings, if his own conduct had been judicious. He should 
have felt that, great as his public services had been, he 
was not faultless; and should have been content to make 
his escape, without aspiring to the honors of a triumph. 
He and his agent took a different view. They were 
impatient for the rewards which, as they conceived, were 
deferred only till Burke's attack should be over. They 
accordingly resolved to force on a decisive action with an 
enemy for whom, if they had been wise, they would have 
made a bridge of gold. On the first day of the session 
of 1786, Major Scott reminded Burke of the notice given 
in the preceding year, and asked whether it was seriously 
intended to bring any charge against the late Governor- 



WARREN HASTINGS 19S 

General. This challenge left no course open to the 
Opposition, except to come forward as accusers, or to 
acknowledge themselves calumniators. The administra- 
tion of Hastings had not been so blameless, nor was the 
great party of Fox and North so feeble, that it could be 
prudent to venture on so bold a defiance. The leaders of 
the Opposition instantly returned the only answer which 
they could with honor return ; and the whole party was 
irrevocably pledged to a prosecution. 

Burke began his operations by applying for Papers. 
Some of the documents for which he asked were refused 
by the ministers, who, in the debate, held language such 
as strongly confirmed the prevailing opinion that they 
intended to support Hastings. In April the charges were 
laid on the table. They had been drawn by Burke with 
great ability, though in a form too much resembling that 
of a pamphlet. Hastings was furnished with a copy of 
the accusation; and it was intimated to him that he 
might, if he thought fit, be heard in his own defence at 
the bar of the Commons. 

Here again Hastings was pursued by the same fatality 
which had attended him ever since the day when he set 
foot on English ground. It seemed to be decreed that 
this man, so politic and so successful in the East, should 
commit nothing but blunders in Europe. Any judicious 
adviser would have told him that the best thing which he 
could do would be to make an eloquent, forcible, and 
affecting oration at the bar of the House ; but that, if he 
could not trust himself to speak, and found it necessary 
to read, he ought to be as concise as possible. Audiences 
accustomed to extemporaneous debating of the highest 
excellence are always impatient of long written composi- 
tions. Hastings, however, sat down as he would have 
done at the Government House in Bengal, and prepared 
a paper of immense length. That paper, if recorded on 
the consultations of an Indian administration, would have 
been justly praised as a very able minute. But it was 



196 WARREN HASTINGS 

now out of place. It fell flat, as the best written defence 
must Jiave fallen flat, on an assembly accustomed to the 
animated and strenuous conflicts of Pitt and Fox. The 
members, as soon as their curiosity about the face and 
demeanor of so eminent a stranger was satisfied, walked 
away to dinner, and left Hastings to tell his story till 
midnight to the clerks and the Sergeant-at-arms. 

All preliminary steps having been duly taken, Burke, 
in the beginning of June, brought forward the charge 
relating to the Rohilla war. He acted discreetly in pla- 
cing this accusation in the van; for Dundas had formerly 
moved, and the House had adopted, a resolution con- 
demning, in the most severe terms, the policy followed 
by Hastings with regard to Kohilcund. Dundas had lit- 
tle, or rather nothing, to say in defence of his own con- 
sistency; but he put a bold face on the matter, and 
opposed the motion. Among other things, he declared 
that, though he still thought the Rohilla war unjustifi- 
able, he considered the services which Hastings had sub- 
sequently rendered to the state as sufficient to atone even 
for so great an offence. Pitt did not speak, but voted 
with Dundas; and Hastings was absolved by a hundred 
and nineteen votes against sixty-seven. 

Hastings was now confident of victory. It seemed, 
indeed, that he had reason to be so. The Rohilla war 
was, of all his measures, that which his accusers might 
with greatest advantage assail. It had been condemned 
by the Court of Directors. It had been condemned by 
the House of Commons. It had been condemned by Mr. 
Dundas, who had since become the chief minister of the 
Crown for Indian affairs. Yet Burke, having chosen 
this strong ground, had been completely defeated on it. 
That, having failed here, he should succeed on any point, 
was generally thought impossible. It was rumored at 
the clubs and coffee-houses that one or perhaps two more 
charges would be brought forward, that if, on those 
charges, the sense of the House of Commons should be 



WARREN HASTINGS 197 

against impeachment, the Opposition would let the mat- 
ter drop, that Hastings would be immediately raised to 
the peerage, decorated with the star of the Bath, sworn 
of the Privy Council, and invited to lend the assistance 
of his talents and experience to the India board. Lord 
Thurlow, indeed, some months before, had spoken with 
contempt of the scruples which prevented Pitt from call- 
ing Hastings to the House of Lords ; and had even said, 
that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was afraid of the 
Commons, there was nothing to prevent the Keeper of 
the Great Seal from taking the royal pleasure about a 
patent of peerage. The very title was chosen. Hastings 
was to be Lord Daylesford. For, through all changes 
of scene and changes of fortune, remained unchanged his 
attachment to the spot which had witnessed the greatness 
and the fall of his family, and which had borne so great 
a part in the first dreams of his young ambition. 

But in a very few days these fair prospects were over- 
cast. On the thirteenth of June, Mr. Fox brought for- 
ward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge re- 
specting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis followed 
on the same side. The friends of Hastings were in high 
spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual abundance and 
felicity of language, the Minister gave his opinion on the 
case. He maintained that the Governor-General was 
justified in calling on the Eajah of Benares for pecuniary 
assistance, and in imposing a fine when that assistance 
was contumaciously withheld. He also thought that the 
conduct of the Governor-General during the insurrec- 
tion had been distinguished by ability and presence of 
mind. He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct 
of Francis, both in India and in Parliament, as most 
dishonest and malignant. The necessary inference from 
Pitt's arguments seemed to be that Hastings ought to be 
honorably acquitted; and both the friends and the op- 
ponents of the Minister expected from him a declaration 
to that effect. To the astonishment of all parties, he 



198 WARREN HASTINGS 

concluded by saying that, thougli he thought it right in 
Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for contumacy, yet the 
amount of the fine was too great for the occasion. On 
this ground, and on this ground alone, did Mr. Pitt, 
applauding every other part of the conduct of Hastings 
with regard to Benares, declare that he should vote in 
favor of Mr. Fox's motion. 

The House was thunderstruck; and it well might be 
so. For the wrong done to Cheyte Sing, even had it 
been as flagitious as Fox and Francis contended, was a 
trifle when compared with the horrors which had been 
inflicted on Rohilcund. But if Mr. Pitt's view of the 
case of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no ground 
for an impeachment, or even for a vote of censure. If 
the offence of Hastings was really no more than this, 
that, having a right to impose a mulct, the amount of 
which mulct was not defined, but was left to be settled 
by his discretion, he had, not for his own advantage, but 
for that of the state, demanded too much, was this an 
offence which required a criminal proceeding of the high- 
est solemnity, — a criminal proceeding to which, during 
sixty years, no public functionary had been subjected? 
We can see, we think, in what way a man of sense and 
integrity might have been induced to take any course 
respecting Hastings except the course which Mr. Pitt 
took. Such a man might have thought a great example 
necessary, for the preventing of injustice and for the 
vindicating the national honor, and might, on that ground, 
have voted for impeachment both on the Rohilla charge 
and on the Benares charge. Such a man might have 
thought that the offences of Hastings had been atoned 
for by great services, and might, on that ground, have 
voted against the impeachment, on both charges. With 
great diffidence, we give it as our opinion that the most 
correct course would, on the whole, have been to impeach 
on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares 
charge* Had the Benares charge appeared to us in the 



WARREN HASTINGS 199 

same light in which it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, 
without hesitation, have voted for acquittal on that 
charge. The one course which it is inconceivable that 
any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt's abilities can have 
honestly taken was the course which he took. He ac- 
quitted Hastings on the Rohilla charge. He softened 
down the Benares charge till it became no charge at all; 
and then he pronounced that it contained matter for 
impeachment. 

Nor must it be forgotten that the principal reason as- 
signed by the ministry for not impeaching Hastings on 
account of the Kohilla war was this, that the delinquen- 
cies of the early part of his administration had been 
atoned for by the excellence of the later part. Was it 
not most extraordinary that men who had held this lan- 
guage could afterwards vote that the later part of his 
administration furnished matter for no less than twenty 
articles of impeachment ? They first represented the con- 
duct of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 as so highly merito- 
rious that, like works of supererogation in the Catholic 
theology, it ought to be efficacious for the cancelling of 
former offences; and they then prosecuted him for his 
conduct in 1780 and 1781. 

The general astonishment was the greater because, 
only twenty -four hours before, the members on whom the 
Minister could depend had received the usual notes from 
the Treasury, begging them to be in their places and to 
vote against Mr. Fox's motion. It was asserted by Mr. 
Hastings that, early on the morning of the very day on 
which the debate took place, Dundas called on Pitt, 
woke him, and was closeted with him many hours. The 
result of this conference was a determination to give up 
the late Governor-General to the vengeance of the Op- 
position. It was impossible even for the most powerful 
minister to carry all his followers with him in so strange 
a course. Several persons high in office, the Attorney- 
General, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Mulgrave, divided 



aoo WARREN HASTINGS 

against Mr. Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood 
by the head of the government without asking questions 
were sufficiently numerous to turn the scale. A hundred 
and nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox's motion; 
seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt. 

That good and great man, the late William Wilber- 
force, often related the events of this remarkable night. 
He described the amazement of the House, and the bitter 
reflections which were muttered against the Prime Minis- 
ter by some of the habitual supporters of government. 
Pitt himself appeared to feel that his conduct required 
some explanation. He left the treasury bench, sat for 
some time next to Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly 
declared that he had found it impossible, as a man of 
conscience, to stand any longer by Hastings. The busi- 
ness, he said, was too bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are 
bound to add, fully believed that his friend was sincere, 
and that the suspicions to which this mysterious affair 
gave rise were altogether unfounded. 

Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to 
mention. The friends of Hastings, most of whom, it is 
to be observed, generally supported the administration, 
affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy. 
Hastings was personally a favorite with the King. He 
was the idol of the East India Company and of its ser- 
vants. If he were absolved by the Commons, seated 
among the Lords, admitted to the Board of Control, 
closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious Thur- 
low, was it not almost certain that he would soon draw 
to himself the entire management of Eastern affairs? 
Was it not possible that he might become a formidable 
rival in the cabinet? It had probably got abroad that 
very singular communications had taken place between 
Thurlow and Major Scott, and that, if the first Lord of 
the Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a 
peerage, the Chancellor was ready to take the responsi- 
bility of that step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was 



WARREN HASTINGS 201 

the least likely to submit with patience to such an en- 
croachment on his functions. If the Commons impeached 
Hastings, all danger was at an end. The proceeding, 
however it might terminate, would probably last some 
years. In the meantime, the accused person would be 
excluded from honors and public employments, and could 
scarcely venture even to pay his duty at court. Such 
were the motives attributed by a great part of the public 
to the young minister, whose ruling passion was generally 
believed to be avarice of power. 

The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions re- 
specting Hastings. In the following year, those discus- 
sions were resumed. The charge touching the spoliation 
of the Begums was brought forward by Sheridan, in a 
speech which was so imperfectly reported that it may be 
said to be wholly lost, but which was, without doubt, the 
most elaborately brilliant of all the productions of his 
ingenious mind. The impression which it produced was 
such as has never been equalled. He sat down, not 
merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of 
hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the stran- 
gers in the gallery joined. The excitement of the House 
was such that no other speaker could obtain a hearing; 
and the debate was adjourned. The ferment spread fast 
through the town. Within four and twenty hours, Sheri- 
dan was offered a thousand pounds for the copyright of 
the speech, if he would himself correct it for the press. 
The impression made by this remarkable display of elo- 
quence on severe and experienced critics, whose discern- 
ment may be supposed to have been quickened by emula- 
tion, was deep and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty 
years later, said that the speech deserved all its fame, 
and was, in spite of some faults of taste, such as were 
seldom wanting either in the literary or in the parliamen- 
tary performances of Sheridan, the finest that had been 
delivered within the memory of man. Mr. Fox, about 
the same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland 



202 . WARREN HASTINGS 

what was the best speech ever made in the House of 
Commons, assigned the first place, without hesitation, to 
the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude charge. 

When the debate #as resumed, the tide ran so strongly 
against the accused that his friends were coughed and 
scraped down. Pitt declared himself for Sheridan's 
motion ; and the question was carried by a hundred and 
seventy-five votes against sixty-eight. 

The Opposition, flushed with victory and strongly sup- 
ported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring for- 
ward a succession of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary 
transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, 
and, having now no hope of being able to avert an im- 
peachment, were not very strenuous in their exertions. 
At length the House, having agreed to twenty articles of 
charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, and to 
impeach the late Governor-General of High Crimes and 
Misdemeanors. Hastings was at the same time arrested 
by the Sergeant-at-arms, and carried to the bar of the 
Peers. 

The session was now within ten days of its close. It 
was, therefore, impossible that any progress could be 
made in the trial till the next year. Hastings was ad- 
mitted to bail; and further proceedings were postponed 
till the Houses should reassemble. 

When Parliament met in the following winter, the 
Commons proceeded to elect a committee for managing 
the impeachment. Burke stood at the head; and with 
him were associated most of the leading members of the 
Opposition. But when the name of Francis was read a 
fierce contention arose. It was said that Francis and 
Hastings were notoriously on bad terms, that they had 
been at feud during many years, that on one occasion 
their mutual aversion had impelled them to seek each 
other's lives, and that it would be improper and indeli- 
cate to select a private enemy to be a public accuser. It 
was urged on the other side with great force, particularly 



WARREN HASTINGS 203 

by Mr. Windliam, that impartiality, though the first 
duty of a judge, had never been reckoned among the 
qualities of an advocate ; that in the ordinary administra- 
tion of criminal justice among the English, the aggrieved 
party, the very last person who ought to be admitted into 
the jury-box, is the prosecutor; that what was wanted in 
a manager was, not that he should be free from bias, but 
that he should be able, well informed, energetic, and 
active. The ability and information of Francis were 
admitted; and the very animosity with which he was 
reproached, whether a virtue or a vice, was at least a 
pledge for his energy and activity. It seems difficult to 
refute these arguments. But the inveterate hatred borne 
by Francis to Hastings had excited general disgust. The 
House decided that Francis should not be a manager. 
Pitt voted with the majority, Dundas with the minority. 

In the meantime, the preparations for the trial had 
proceeded rapidly; and on the thirteenth of February, 
1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. There have 
been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous 
with jewelry and cloth of gold, more attractive to 
grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited 
at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spec- 
tacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a 
reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds 
of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, 
to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot, 
and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplish- 
ments which are developed by liberty and civilization 
were now displayed, with every advantage that could be 
derived both from cooperation and from contrast. Every 
step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, 
through many troubled centuries, to the days when the 
foundations of our Constitution were laid, or far away, 
over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living 
under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writ- 
ing strange characters from right to left. The High 



ao4 WARREN HASTINGS 

Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed 
down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an English- 
man accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the 
holy city of Benares, and over the ladies of the princely 
House of Oude. 

The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great 
hall of William Eufus, the hall which had resounded 
with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the 
hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and 
the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the elo- 
quence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a 
victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall 
where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice 
with the placid courage which has half redeemed his 
fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. 
The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets 
were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold 
and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter 
King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments of state 
attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hun- 
dred and seventy lords, three fourths of the Upper House 
as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order 
from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. 
The junior baron present led the way, George Eliott, 
Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable 
defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of 
France and Spain. The long procession was closed by 
the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the 
great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the 
King. Last of all came the Prince of "Wales, conspic- 
uous by his fine person and noble bearing. The gray old 
walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were 
crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the 
fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered 
together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and 
prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and 
learning, the representatives of every science and of every 



WARREN HASTINGS 205 

art. There were seated round the Queen the fair-haired 
young daughters of the House of Brunswick. There the 
Ambassadors of great Kings and Commonwealths gazed 
with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in 
the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime 
of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene 
surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the 
historian of the Roman empire thought of the days 
when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, 
and when, before a senate which still retained some show 
of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of 
Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest 
painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spec- 
tacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has 
preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many 
writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many 
noble matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend his 
labors in that dark and profound mine from which he 
had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, a treasure too 
often buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudi- 
cious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, 
and splendid. There appeared the voluptuous charms of 
her to whom the heir of the throne had in secret plighted 
his faith. There too was she, the beautiful mother of 
a beautiful race, the St. Cecilia whose delicate features, 
lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the 
common decay. There were the members of that bril- 
liant society which quoted, criticised, and exchanged re- 
partees, under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Mon- 
tague. And there the ladies whose lips, more persuasive 
than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster 
election against palace and treasury shone round Geor- 
giana. Duchess of Devonshire. 

The Sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced 
to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed 
not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an 
extensive and populous country, had made laws and trea- 



ao6 WARREN HASTINGS 

ties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down 
princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself 
that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and 
that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except 
virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad 
man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity 
from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the 
Court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self- 
respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive 
but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face 
pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, as 
legibly as under the picture in the council chamber at 
Calcutta, Mens cequa in arduis; such was the aspect with 
which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges. 

His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were 
afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the 
highest posts in their profession, the bold and strong- 
minded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's 
Bench; the more humane and eloquent Dallas, after- 
wards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer 
who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in 
the same high court the defence of Lord Melville, and 
subsequently became Vice-Chancellor and Master of the 
EoUs. 

But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so 
much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze 
of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green 
benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, 
with Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. The 
collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, 
generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the 
illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and 
sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the 
impeachment; and his commanding, copious, and sono- 
rous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various 
talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord North for 
the duties of a public prosecutor; and his friends were 



WARREN HASTINGS 207 

left without the help of his excellent sense, his tact, and 
his urbanity. But, in spite of the absence of these two 
distinguished members of the Lower House, the box in 
which the managers stood contained an array of speakers 
such as perhaps had not appeared together since the great 
age of Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and Sheri- 
dan, the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. 
There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the 
art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capa- 
city and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of compre- 
hension and richness of imagination superior to every 
orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reveren- 
tially fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the 
age, his form developed by every manly exercise, his face 
beaming with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the 
chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though sur- 
rounded by such men, did the youngest manager pass 
unnoticed. At an age when most of those who distin- 
guished themselves in life are still contending for prizes 
and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a 
conspicuous place in Parliament. No advantage of for- 
tune or connection was wanting that could set off to the 
height his splendid talents and his unblemished honor. 
At twenty -three he had been thought worthy to be ranked 
with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the dele- 
gates of the British Commons, at the bar of the British 
nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, 
are gone, culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation 
which is now in the vigor of life, he is the sole represent- 
ative of a great age which has passed away. But those 
who, within the last ten years, have listened with de- 
light, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the 
House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of 
Charles Earl Grey are able to form some estimate of the 
powers of a race of men among whom he was not the 
foremost. 

The charges and the answers of Hastings were first 



2o8 WARREN HASTINGS 

read. Tlie ceremony occupied two whole days, and was 
rendered less tedious than it would otherwise have been 
by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk 
of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet. On 
the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied 
by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general 
introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of 
thought and a splendor of diction which more than sat- 
isfied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he 
described the character and institutions of the natives of 
India, recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic 
empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the con- 
stitution of the Company and of the English Presidencies. 
Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an 
idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in 
his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administra- 
tion of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance 
of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of 
the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admi- 
ration from the stern and hostile Chancellor, and, for a 
moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the 
defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to 
such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of 
the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their 
taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable 
emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out ; smelling-bot- 
tles were handed round ; hysterical sobs and screams were 
heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At 
length the orator concluded. Raising his voice till the 
old arches of Irish oak resounded, "Therefore," said he, 
"hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Com- 
mons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings 
of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the 
name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust 
he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the 
English nation, whose ancient honor he has sullied. I 
impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose 



WARREN HASTINGS 209 

rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he 
has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human 
nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of 
every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the 
common enemy and oppressor of all." 

When the deep murmur of various emotions had sub- 
sided, Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords respecting the 
course of proceeding to be followed. The wish of the 
accusers was that the Court would bring to a close the 
investigation of the first charge before the second was 
opened. The wish of Hastings and of his counsel was 
that the managers should open all the charges, and pro- 
duce all the evidence for the prosecution, before the 
defence began. The Lords retired to their own House 
to consider the question. The Chancellor took the side 
of Hastings. Lord Loughborough, who was now in 
opposition, supported the demand of the managers. The 
division showed which way the inclination of the tribunal 
leaned. A majority of near three to one decided in favor 
of the course for which Hastings contended. 

When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. 
Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and sev- 
eral days were spent in reading papers and hearing wit- 
nesses. The next article was that relating to the Prin- 
cesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of the case 
was entrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public 
to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly 
finished declamation lasted two days; but the hall was 
crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was 
said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. 
Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a know- 
ledge of stage effect which his father might have envied, 
to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, 
who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration. 

June was now far advanced. The session could not 
last much longer ; and the progress which had been made 
in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There 



2IO WARREN HASTINGS 

were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the 
case for the prosecution been heard; and it was now a 
year since Hastings had been admitted to bail. 

The interest taken by the public in the trial was great 
when the Court began to sit, and rose to the height when 
Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to the Begums. 
From that time the excitement went down fast. The 
spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. The great 
displays of rhetoric were over. What was behind was 
not of a nature to entice men of letters from their books 
in the morning, or to tempt ladies who had left the 
masquerade at two to be out of bed before eight. There 
remained examinations and cross-examinations. There 
remained statements of accounts. There remained the 
reading of papers, filled with words unintelligible to 
English ears, with lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, 
sunnuds and perwannahs, jaghires and nuzzurs. There 
remained bickerings, not always carried on with the best 
taste or with the best temper, between the managers of 
the impeachment and the counsel for the defence, par- 
ticularly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There re- 
mained the endless marches and countermarches of the 
Peers between their House and the hall: for as often as 
a point of law was to be discussed, their Lordships retired 
to discuss it apart; and the consequence was, as a Peer 
wittily said, that the Judges walked and the trial stood 
still. 

It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when the 
trial commenced, no important question, either of domes- 
tic or foreign policy, occupied the public mind. The 
proceeding in Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally at- 
tracted most of the attention of Parliament and of the 
public. It was the one great event of that season. But 
in the following year the King's illness, the debates on 
the Kegency, the expectation of a change of Ministry, 
completely diverted public attention from Indian affairs; 
and within a fortnight after George the Third had 



WARREN HASTINGS 211 

returned thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery, the States- 
General of France met at Versailles. In the midst of 
the agitation produced by these events, the impeachment 
was for a time almost forgotten. 

The trial in the hall went on languidly. In the ses- 
sion of 1788, when the proceedings had the interest of 
novelty, and when the Peers had little other business 
before them, only thirty-five days were given to the im- 
peachment. In 1789 the Regency Bill occupied the 
Upper House till the session was far advanced. When 
the King recovered the circuits were beginning. The 
Judges left town ; the Lords waited for the return of the 
oracles of jurisprudence; and the consequence was that 
during the whole year only seventeen days were given to 
the case of Hastings. It was clear that the matter would 
be protracted to a length unprecedented in the annals of 
criminal law. 

In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment, 
though it is a fine ceremony, and though it may have 
been useful in the seventeenth century, is not a proceed- 
ing from which much good can now be expected. What- 
ever confidence may be placed in the decision of the 
Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary litigation, it 
is certain that no man has the least confidence in their 
impartiality when a great public functionary, charged 
with a great state crime, is brought to their bar. They 
are all politicians. There is hardly one among them 
whose vote on an impeachment may not be cbnfidently 
predicted before a witness has been examined; and, even 
if it were possible to rely on their justice, they would 
still be quite unfit to try such a cause as that of Hastings. 
They sit only during half the year. They have to trans- 
act much legislative and much judicial business. The 
law lords, whose advice is required to guide the unlearned 
majority, are employed daily in administering justice 
elsewhere. It is impossible, therefore, that during a 
busy session, the Upper House should give more than a 



212 WARREN HASTINGS 

few days to an impeachment. To expect that their 
Lordships would give up partridge-shooting, in order to 
bring the greatest delinquent to speedy justice, or to 
relieve accused innocence by speedy acquittal, would be 
unreasonable indeed. A well-constituted tribunal, sit- 
ting regularly six days in the week, and nine hours in 
the day, would have brought the trial of Hastings to a 
close in less than three months. The Lords had not 
finished their work in seven years. 

The result ceased to be matter of doubt, from the time 
when the Lords resolved that they would be guided by 
the rules of evidence which are received in the inferior 
courts of the realm. Those rules, it is well known, ex- 
clude much information which would be quite sufficient 
to determine the conduct of any reasonable man, in the 
most important transactions of private life. These rules, 
at every assizes, save scores of culprits whom judges, 
jury, and spectators, firmly believe to be guilty. But 
when those rules were rigidly api3lied to offences com- 
mitted many years before, at the distance of many thou- 
sands of miles, conviction was, of course, out of the ques- 
tion. We do not blame the accused and his counsel for 
availing themselves of every legal advantage in order to 
obtain an acquittal. But it is clear that an acquittal so 
obtained cannot be pleaded in bar of the judgment of 
history. 

Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings 
to put a stop to the trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote 
of censure upon Burke, for some violent language which 
he had used respecting the death of Nuncomar and the 
connection between Hastings and Impey. Burke was then 
unpopular in the last degree both with the House and 
with the country. The asperity and indecency of some 
expressions which he had used during the debates on the 
Eegency had annoyed even his warmest friends. The 
vote of censure was carried; and those who had moved it 
hoped that the managers would resign in disgust. Burke 



WARREN HASTINGS 213 

was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what he considered as 
the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over his per- 
sonal feelings. He received the censure of the House 
with dignity and meekness, and declared that no personal 
mortification or humiliation should induce him to flinch 
from the sacred duty which he had undertaken. 

In the following year the Parliament was dissolved, 
and the friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the 
new House of Commons might not be disposed to go on 
with the impeachment. They began by maintaining that 
the whole proceeding was terminated by the dissolution. 
Defeated on this point, they made a direct motion that 
the impeachment should be dropped ; but they were de- 
feated by the combined forces of the Government and the 
Opposition. It was, however, resolved that, for the sake 
of expedition, many of the articles should be withdrawn. 
In truth, had not some such measure been adopted, the 
trial would have lasted till the defendant was in his 
grave. 

At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pro- 
nounced, near eight years after Hastings had been brought 
by the Sergeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of 
the Lords. On the last day of this great procedure the 
public curiosity, long suspended, seemed to be revived. 
Anxiety about the judgment there could be none; for it 
had been fully ascertained that there was a great majority 
for the defendant. Nevertheless, many wished to see the 
pageant, and the hall was as much crowded as on the 
first day. But those who, having been present on the 
first day, now bore a part in the proceedings of the last, 
were few ; and most of those few were altered men. 

As Hastings himseK said, the arraignment had taken 
place before one generation, and the judgment was pro- 
nounced by another. The spectator could not look at the 
woolsack, or at the red benches of the Peers, or at the 
green benches of the Commons, without seeing something 
that reminded him of the instability of all human things, 



214 WARREN HASTINGS 

of the instability of power and fame and life, of the more 
lamentable instability of friendship. The Great Seal was 
borne before Lord Loughborough who, when the trial 
commenced, was a fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's govern- 
ment, and who was now a member of that government, 
while Thurlow, who presided in the Court when it first 
sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat scowling among 
the junior barons. Of about a hundred and sixty nobles 
who walked in the procession on the first day, sixty had 
been laid in their family vaults. Still more affecting 
must have been the sight of the managers' box. What 
had become of that fair fellowship, so closely bound to- 
gether by public and private ties, so resplendent with 
every talent and accomplishment? It had been scattered 
by calamities more bitter than the bitterness of death. 
The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full 
vigor of their genius. But their friendship was at an 
end. It had been violently and publicly dissolved, with 
tears and stormy reproaches. If those men, once so dear 
to each other, were now compelled to meet for the pur- 
pose of managing the impeachment, they met as strangers 
whom public business had brought together, and behaved 
to each other with cold and distant civility. Burke had 
in his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been 
followed by Sheridan and Grey. 

Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six 
found Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte 
Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, the major- 
ity in his favor was still greater. On some, he was unan- 
imously absolved. He was then called to the bar, was 
informed from the woolsack that the Lords had acquitted 
him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respect- 
fully and retired. 

We have said that the decision had been fully ex- 
pected. It was also generally approved. At the com- 
mencement of the trial there had been a strong and in- 
deed unreasonable feeling against Hastings. At the 



WARREN HASTINGS 215 

close of the trial there was a feeling equally strong and 
equally unreasonable in his favor. One cause of the 
change was, no doubt, what is commonly called the 
fickleness of the multitude, but what seems to us to be 
merely the general law of human nature. Both in indi- 
viduals and in masses violent excitement is always fol- 
lowed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all 
inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, 
on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we 
have shown undue rigor. It was thus in the case of 
Hastings. The length of his trial, moreover, made him 
an object of compassion. It was thought, and not with- 
out reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill- 
used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was 
more than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, 
though, in the ordinary course of criminal law, a defend- 
ant is not allowed to set off his good actions against his 
crimes, a great political cause should be tried on different 
principles, and that a man who had governed an empire 
during thirteen years might have done some very repre- 
hensible things, and yet might be on the whole deserving 
of rewards and honors rather than of fine and imprison- 
ment. The press, an instrument neglected by the pro- 
secutors, was used by Hastings and his friends with great 
effect. Every ship, too, that arrived from Madras or 
Bengal, brought a cuddy full of his admirers. Every 
gentleman from India spoke of the late Governor-General 
as having deserved better, and having been treated worse, 
than any man living. The effect of this testimony, unan- 
imously given by all persons who knew the East, was 
naturally very great. Retired members of the Indian 
services, civil and military, were settled in all corners of 
the kingdom. Each of them was, of course, in his own 
little circle, regarded as an oracle on an Indian question ; 
and they were, with scarcely one exception, the zealous 
advocates of Hastings. It is to be added that the 
numerous addresses to the late Governor-General, which 



2i6 WARREN HASTINGS 

liis friends in Bengal obtained from the natives and 
transmitted to England, made a considerable impression. 
To these addresses we attach little or no importance. 
That Hastings was beloved by the people whom he gov- 
erned is true; but the eulogies of pundits, zemindars, 
Mahommedan doctors, do not prove it to be true. For 
an English collector or judge would have found it easy to 
induce any native who could write to sign a panegyric on 
the most odious ruler that ever was in India. It was 
said that at Benares, the very place at which the acts set 
forth in the first article of impeachment had been com- 
mitted, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings; 
and this story excited a strong sensation in England. 
Burke's observations on the apotheosis were admirable. 
He saw no reason for astonishment, he said, in the inci- 
dent which had been represented as so striking. He 
knew something of the mythology of the Brahmins. He 
knew that as they worshipped some gods from love, so 
they worshipped others from fear. He knew that they 
erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of light 
and plenty, but also to the fiends who preside over small- 
pox and murder. Nor did he at all dispute the claim of 
Mr. Hastings to be admitted into such a Pantheon. This 
reply has always struck us as one of the finest that ever 
was made in Parliament. It is a grave and forcible 
argument, decorated by the most brilliant wit and fancy. 
Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything ex- 
cept character, he would have been far better off if, when 
first impeached, he had at once pleaded guilty, and paid 
a fine of fifty thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. 
The legal expenses of his defence had been enormous. 
The expenses which did not appear in his attorney's bill 
were perhaps larger still. Great sums had been paid to 
Major Scott. Great sums had been laid out in bribing 
newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating 
tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House 
of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been 



WARREN HASTINGS 217 

employed in corrupting the press. It is certain that no 
controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the 
coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan defended 
the accused governor with great ability in prose. For 
the lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were 
burlesqued in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid, 
indisputable that Hastings stooped so low as to court the 
aid of that malignant and filthy baboon John Williams, 
who called himself Anthony Pasquin. It was necessary to 
subsidize such allies largely. The private hoards of Mrs. 
Hastings had disappeared. It is said that the banker 
to whom they had been entrusted had failed. Still if 
Hastings had practised strict economy, he would, after 
all his losses, have had a moderate competence; but in 
the management of his private affairs he was imprudent. 
The dearest wish of his heart had always been to regain 
Daylesford. At length, in the very year in which his 
trial commenced, the wish was accomplished; and the 
domain, alienated more than seventy years before, re- 
turned to the descendant of its old lords. But the manor 
house was a ruin ; and the grounds round it had, during 
many years, been utterly neglected. Hastings proceeded 
to build, to plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate 
a grotto; and, before he was dismissed from the bar of 
the House of Lords, he had expended more than forty 
thousand pounds in adorning his seat. 

The general feeling both of the Directors and of the 
proprietors of the East India Company was that he had 
great claims on them, that his services to them had been 
eminent, and that his misfortunes had been the effect of 
his zeal for their interest. His friends in Leadenhall 
Street proposed to reimburse him for the costs of his 
trial, and to settle on him an annuity of five thousand 
pounds a year. But the consent of the Board of Control 
was necessary; and at the head of the Board of Control 
was Mr. Dundas, who had himself been a party to the 
impeachment, who had, on that account, been reviled 



2i8 WARREN HASTINGS 

with great bitterness by the adherents of Hastings, and 
who, therefore, was not in a very complying mood. He 
refused to consent to what the Directors suggested. The 
Directors remonstrated. A long controversy followed. 
Hastings, in the meantime, was reduced to such distress 
that he could hardly pay his weekly bills. At length a 
compromise was made. An annuity for life of four thou- 
sand pounds was settled on Hastings; and in order to 
enable him to meet pressing demands, he was to receive 
ten years' annuity in advance. The Company was also 
permitted to lend him fifty thousand j)ounds, to be repaid 
by instalments without interest. This relief, though 
given in the most absurd manner, was sufficient to enable 
the retired governor to live in comfort, and even in lux- 
ury, if he had been a skilful manager. But he was care- 
less and profuse, and was more than once under the ne- 
cessity of applying to the Company for assistance, which 
was liberally given. 

He had security and affluence, but not the power and 
dignity which, when he landed from India, he had reason 
to expect. He had then looked forward to a coronet, 
a red ribbon, a seat at the council board, an office at 
Whitehall. He was then only fifty-two, and might hope 
for many years of bodily and mental vigor. The case 
was widely different when he left the bar of the Lords. 
He was now too old a man to turn his mind to a new 
class of studies and duties. He had no chance of receiv- 
ing any mark of royal favor while Mr. Pitt remained 
in power ; and, when . Mr. Pitt retired, Hastings was 
approaching his seventieth year. 

Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he interfered 
in politics; and that interference was not much to his 
honor. In 1804 he exerted himself strenuously to pre- 
vent Mr. Addington, against whom Fox and Pitt had 
combined, from resigning the Treasury. It is difficult to 
believe that a man so able and energetic as Hastings can 
have thought that, when Bonaparte was at Boulogne with 



WARREN HASTINGS 219 

a great army, the defence of our island could safely be 
entrusted to a ministry which did not contain a single 
person whom flattery could describe as a great statesman. 
It is also certain that, on the important question which 
had raised Mr. Addington to power, and on which he 
differed from both Fox and Pitt, Hastings, as might have 
been expected, agreed with Fox and Pitt, and was de- 
cidedly opposed to Addington. Religious intolerance 
has never been the vice of the Indian service, and cer- 
tainly was not the vice of Hastings. But Mr. Addington 
had treated him with marked favor. Fox had been a 
principal manager of the impeachment. To Pitt it was 
owing that there had been an impeachment; and Has- 
tings, we fear, was on this occasion guided by personal 
considerations rather than by a regard to the public 
interest. 

The last twenty -four years of his life were chiefly 
passed at Daylesford. He amused himself with embel- 
lishing his grounds, riding fine Arab horses, fattening 
prize-cattle, and trying to rear Indian animals and vege- 
tables in England. He sent for seeds of a very fine 
custard-apple, from the garden of what had once been 
his own villa, among the green hedgerows of AUipore. 
He tried also to naturalize in Worcestershire the deli- 
cious leechee, almost the only fruit of Bengal which 
deserves to be regretted even amidst the plenty of Covent 
Garden. The Mogul emperors, in the time of their 
greatness, had in vain attempted to introduce into Hindo- 
stan the goat of the table-land of Thibet, whose down 
supplies the looms of Cashmere with the materials of the 
finest shawls. Hastings tried, with no better fortune, to 
rear a breed at Daylesford; nor does he seem to have 
succeeded better with the cattle of Bootan, whose tails are 
in high esteem as the best fans for brushing away the 
mosquitoes. 

Literature divided his attention with his conservatories 
and his menagerie. He had aways loved books, and they 



(220 WARREN HASTINGS 



were now necessary to him. Though not a poet, in any 
high sense of the word, he wrote neat and polished lines 
with great facility, and was fond of exercising this talent. 
Indeed, if we must speak out, he seems to have been 
more of a Trissotin than was to be expected from the 
powers of his mind and from the great part which he had 
played in life. We are assured in these Memoirs that 
the first thing which he did in the morning was to write a 
copy of verses. When the family and guests assembled, 
the poem made its appearance as regularly as the eggs 
and rolls ; and Mr. Gleig requires us to believe that if from 
any accident Hastings came to the breakfast-table without 
one of his charming performances in his hand, the omis- 
sion was felt by all as a grievous disappointment. Tastes 
differ widely. For ourselves we must say that, however 
good the breakfasts at Daylesford may have been, — 
and we are assured that the tea was of the most aromatic 
flavor, and that neither tongue nor venison-pasty was 
wanting, — we should have thought the reckoning high 
if we had been forced to earn our repast by listening 
every day to a new madrigal or sonnet composed by our 
host. We are glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has pre- 
served this little feature of character, though we think it 
by no means a beauty. It is good to be often reminded 
of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look 
without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are 
found in the strongest minds. Dionysius in old times, 
Frederic in the last century, with capacity and vigor 
equal to the conduct of the greatest affairs, united all the 
little vanities and affectations of provincial blue-stock- 
ings. These great examples may console the admirers of 
Hastings for the affliction of seeing him reduced to the 
level of the Hayleys and Sewards. 

When Hastings had passed many years in retirement, 
and had long outlived the common age of men, he again 
became for a short time an object of general attention. 
In 1813 the charter of the East India Company was 






WARREN HASTINGS 221 

renewed; and much discussion about Indian affairs took 
place in Parliament. It was determined to examine 
witnesses at the bar of the Commons; and Hastings was 
ordered to attend. He had appeared at that bar once 
before. It was when he read his answer to the charges 
which Burke had laid on the table. Since that time 
twenty-seven years had elapsed; public feeling had un- 
dergone a complete change ; the nation had now forgotten 
his faults, and remembered only his services. The reap- 
pearance, too, of a man who had been among the most 
distinguished of a generation that had passed away, who 
now belonged to history, and who seemed to have risen 
from the dead, could not but produce a solemn and 
pathetic effect. The Commons received him with accla- 
mations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, when he 
retired, rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few 
who did not sympathize with the general feeling. One 
or two of the managers of the impeachment were present. 
They sat in the same seats which they had occupied when 
they had been thanked for the services which they had 
rendered in Westminster Hall: for, by the courtesy of 
the House, a member who has been thanked in his place 
is considered as having a right always to occupy that 
place. These gentlemen were not disposed to admit that 
they had employed several of the best years of their lives 
in persecuting an innocent man. They accordingly kej)t 
their seats, and pulled their hats over their brows; but 
the exceptions only made the prevailing enthusiasm more 
remarkable. The Lords received the old man with 
similar tokens of respect. The University of Oxford 
conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws ; and, in 
the Sheldonian Theatre, the undergraduates welcomed 
him with tumultuous cheering. 

These marks of public esteem were soon followed by 
marks of royal favor. Hastings was sworn of the Privy 
Council, and was admitted to a long private audience 
of the Prince Regent, who treated him very graciously. 



222 WARREN HASTINGS 

When the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia 
visited England, Hastings appeared in their train both at 
Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, and, though 
surrounded by a crowd of princes and great warriors, 
was everywhere received with marks of respect and ad- 
miration. He was presented by the Prince Regent both 
to Alexander and to Frederic William; and his Royal 
Highness went so far as to declare in public that honors 
far higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due, and 
would soon be paid, to the man who had saved the British 
dominions in Asia. Hastings now confidently expected 
a peerage; but, from some unexplained cause, he was 
again disappointed. 

He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of 
good spirits, of faculties not impaired to any painful or 
degrading extent, and of health such as is rarely enjoyed 
by those who attain such an age. At length, on the 
twenty-second of August, 1818, in the eighty-sixth year 
of his age, he met death with the same tranquil and deco- 
rous fortitude which he had opposed to all the trials of 
his various and eventful life. 

With all his faults, — and they were neither few nor 
small, — only one cemetery was worthy to contain his re- 
mains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation where 
the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great 
Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet 
resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been 
shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust 
of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the 
dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. 
Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind 
the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth 
which already held the bones of many chiefs of the House 
of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who 
has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. 
On that very spot probably, fourscore years before, the 
little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played 



WARREN HASTINGS 223 

with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young 
mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. 
Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had been 
so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan 
retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had 
he repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwell- 
ing. He had preserved and extended an empire. He 
had founded a polity. He had administered government 
and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He 
had patronized learning with the judicious liberality of 
Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable 
combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction 
of a single victim; and over that combination, after a 
struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at 
length gone down to his grave in the fulness of age, in 
peace after so many troubles, in honor after so much 
obloquy. 

Those who look on his character without favor or 
malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great ele- 
ments of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of 
others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he 
was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His 
heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with 
truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful 
ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude 
and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for com- 
mand, for administration, and for controversy, his daunt- 
less courage, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for 
the interests of the state, his noble equanimity, tried by 
both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either. 



NOTES 

Page 95 

uncovered : See page 221. Members wear their hats in the 
House of Commons. 

young Lely : Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) came to England 
from Holland with the Prince of Orange, in 1641, and remained 
there the rest of his life, painting many of the prominent people 
of the day, and becoming court painter to Charles II. 

Page 96 

the great Danish sea-king : Hasting (Danish Hasten) was a 
ninth-century viking, defeated by King Alfred in 894. 
the renovrned Chamberlain : William, Lord Hastings, was 
a leader on the Yorkist side in the Wars of the Poses. Under 
Richard III, he was accused of treason at a council in the Tower, 
and beheaded at once. The story is told by Sir Thomas More, 
whose account was dramatized by Shakspere. See King Rich- 
ard III, Act III, sc. iv. 

a series of events scarcely paralleled : The earldom lapsed, 
in 1789, as it was supposed there were no male heirs. After 
thirty years, it was proved that a certain Captain Hastings by 
tracing his line back two hundred and fifty years to the second 
earl, could justify a claim to the title. The romance consisted 
in the unexpected revival of a great title, and in the fact that 
the claim was not brought up by Captain Hastings, but by a 
lawyer, Mr. Bell, at his own risk and expense, 
the mint at Oxford : The University of Oxford has always 
been a centre of conservatism and royalism; it was especially so 
during the Cromweliian wars. 

Page 97 

Speaker Lenthal : William Lenthall, as the name is usually 
spelled (1591-1602), was the speaker of the famous Long Par- 
liament that resisted Charles I. 

Page 98 

the Isis : a name by which the upper Thames is known, espe- 
cially about Oxford. 

"Westminster school : founded by Queen Elizabeth ; it oc- 
cupies the buildings of the former monastery attached to West- 
minster Abbey. 

Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper: Of these 
eighteenth-century writers, the only one now much read is Cow- 
per, whose " John Gilpin " is familiar to most boys. Cowper led 
a retired life, in the little village of Olney, writing hymns and 
descriptive poetry. 

Page 99 

foundation, studentship : what we should call in America 
scholarships. Three pupils are sent yearly from the Westmin- 

xiv 



NOTES 

ster School to Christ Church, one of the most famous Oxford 
colleges, with a " studentship " of ^400 a year. 
Page 100 

hexameters and pentameters : The writing of Latin verse is 
a very important element of the traditional English schooling, 
writership : position as clerk. 

East India Company : founded for purposes of trade, under 
Queen Elizabeth, in 1600, it gradually acquired privileges of 
holding property, and assumed functions of government, which it 
finally relinquished to the crown in 1858. At the time Hastings 
entered it, the East India Company was the source of great 
revenues, and was beginning under Clive to exercise important 
political powers. See Macaulay's Essay on Clive. 
Calcutta : the chief city of Bengal, at the mouth of the Hoog- 
ley, the southernmost branch of the Ganges ; about a thousand 
miles northeast of Madras, where Clive had won his fame. See 
map. 

Dupleix : Marquis Joseph Frangois, governor-general of the 
French East Indies, 1742-54. Macaulay's Essay on Clive gives 
an account of the struggle between Dupleix and Clive to win 
control of India for their respective governments, 
such as the city of London bears to Westminster : 
The part of London called *'the City," within the line of the 
former city wall, is now the heart of the business district. 
Westminster, where the Houses of Parliament and other gov- 
ernment offices are, was formerly separated from London by a 
stretch of open country, now, of course, built up by the expan- 
sion of the city. 

Mogul: the emperor of all India ; formerly of great power, but 
now exercising only a nominal control. 

Page 101 

Nabob : Surajah Dowlah. A nabob was governor of a province, 
as Bengal, or the Carnatic. 

Page 103 

rotten boroughs : districts which had, by ancient custom, the 
riglit to send representatives to Parliament, although their in- 
habitants had become so few that one man of wealth or influ- 
ence could control the election. 

He could not protect the natives : Hastings was the only 
one who heartily supported Vansittart in measures to reform 
the government and protect the natives from injustice. See 
Ly all's Warren Hastings, p. 17. 

Page 105 

Hafiz : a famous Persian poet of the fourteenth century. 
Ferdusi : a tenth-century epic poet, who sang the deeds of 
the early Persian kings and heroes. 

Johnson : Samuel Johnson, the literary dictator of London in 
the last half of the eighteenth century. The letter, referred 
to below, begins: "Sir: Though I have had but little per- 
sonal knowledge of you, I have had enough to make me wish 

XV 



NOTES 

for more ; and though it be now a long time since I was hon- 
oured by your visit, I had too much pleasure from it to fqrget 
it." This letter, and two others from Johnson to Hastings, may 
be found in Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

Page 106 

pagodas : The pagoda was a gold coin bearing the image of a 
pagoda or temple. Its value was not quite two dollars. 
Archangel: the chief town of northern Russia, on the Dwiua 
River. 

Page 108 

the system -which Clive had devised : This system was, 
in brief, that certain vast provinces were restored to native rule, 
on condition that the English should be '* diwan," or fiscal ad- 
ministrators, paying from the sums collected a certain income 
to the native rulers. For details, see Macaulay's Clive. 
Augustulus : the last Roman Emperor of the West (ruled 
475-6 A. D.). Odoacer, a barbarian chieftain who had en- 
tered the Roman army, dethroned him, abolished the title, and 
ruled the western world under the title of Patrician, nominally 
subject to the Emperor of the East but actually independent. 
the last Merovingians : The Merovingian line of Fraukish 
kings came, in the beginning of the eighth century, completely 
under the control of their mayors of the palace, who were the 
real rulers. The last of them, Childeric, was deposed by his 
mayor of the palace, Pepin, son of Charles the Hammer. 

Page 109 

At present : This essay was written in 1841. In 1858, these 
governmental powers were transferred to the Crown, and have 
since been administered by the Secretary of State for India. See 
Lowell, Government of England, vol. i, p. 89 and vol. ii, p. 420. 

Page 111 

that "was Nuncomar : Denny comments that this could not 

have been true of his physical organization, for he is described as 

of " an excessively strong constitution," and " tall and majestic." 

Ionian : The Greek colonists of Ionia, in Asia Minor, who 

devoted themselves largely to the arts of peace, became the 

prey of more warlike nations, and were held in contempt by 

the Romans. 

Juvenal (60-140 a. d.) : a noted Roman satiric poet. 

Sepoy : a native soldier of the British army in India. 

Stoics : Their main principle was, that as joy and sorrow are 

alike unavoidable, one should meet them both without giving 

way to emotion, and devote one's self to the performance of 

duty. 

ideal sage : Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect. 

Page 112 

Mucins : C. Mucins Scsevola, a legendary Roman hero, who, 
being threatened with death for his attempt to assassinate Lars 
Porsena, thrust his hand into the fire to show what a Roman 
could endure. 

xvi 



NOTES 

Algernon Sidney : beheaded in 1683, on insufficient evidence, 
for complicity iu the Rye House Plot to kill Charles II. 

Page 113 

gold mohurs : coins worth about $7.25. 

Leadenhall Street : where the offices of the East India Com- 
pany were, in London. 

Page 116 

The object of his diplomacy was ... to get money : Ma- 
caulay's account of the causes and the conduct of the Rohilla 
war has been investigated by modern historians, and found to 
be unjust to Hastings. His chief object was not to get money, 
but to establish a strong and responsible government to stand 
between the British possessions and the fierce tribes of the 
Marattas, who terrorized India. (See Essay on Clive, p. 12.) 
The Rohillas were not " the finest population in India," who were 
driven by the hundred thousand from their well-ordered ances- 
tral homes. They were, as Macaulay himself calls them in the 
Essay on Clive (p. 12), " a band of mercenary soldiers" of Afghan 
race, who sixty years before had imposed their rule on the peace- 
loving inhabitants of Rohilcund. Their number has been vari- 
ously estimated at from fifteen to forty thousand. The " exter- 
mination " of the Rohillas, which, again, Macaulay takes from 
Mill's history and Burke's speeches, is purely fictitious ; there is 
no evidence that any were killed except in battle, and the " ex- 
ile " of the survivors merely amounted to requiring those who 
had borne arms to move a few miles across the Ganges to the 
lands of their kinsmen. The charge of atrocity in the conduct 
of the war, committed by the Vizier, but permitted or excused 
by Hastings, has been investigated, and shown to be largely 
false with regard to the alleged cruelty, and wholly so with re- 
gard to Hastings, who took every step in his power to prevent 
it. (See Strachey, Sir John, Hastings and the Rohilla War, Ox- 
ford, 1892.) 

Teviotdale : a popular name, in tradition, for Roxburghshire, 
a southern county of Scotland, embracing the valleys of the 
Tweed and the Teviot, and famous for many border forays. 
lacs of rupees : A rupee is a silver coin worth about half a dol- 
lar. A lac is a hundred thousand. 

Page 118 

a tool in the hands of others : The " others " were the 
dreaded Marattas, who had captured Delhi and compelled the 
Emperor to grant them these two provinces, clearly as a step to 
the conquest of Rohilcund and Oude. From the first, it had 
been the object of Hastings in strengthening the Nabob of Oude, 
and the Emperor was as a protection against the Marattas. 

Page 119 

Sanskrit : the earliest of the family of languages from which 
the languages of Europe are derived. 

cross of St. George : the vertical cross in the British flag. 
Ghizni : Macaulay refers to a recent battle (two years before 

xvii 



NOTES 

the essay was written) in which the British had taken by storm 
a chief town of Afghanistan. 

Page 120 

Aurungzebe : Emperor of India, 1658-1707. See Essay on 
Clive, page 11. 

Catherine : Empress of Russia, 1762-96. Famous for her ex- 
tensive additions to the Empire, in part through the three Par- 
titions of Poland (between Russia, Prussia, and Austria). 
the Bonaparte family : Napoleon, in his ambition to control 
all of Europe, made his brother Joseph king of Spain in 1808. 

Page 122 

caput lupinum : wolf's head. 

Page 126 

Letters of Junius : a series of very brilliant and daring attacks 
on the government of England, published anonymously between 
1769 and 1772 in the Public Advertiser, a London paper. Their 
authorship is one of the famous puzzles of literature ; Macau- 
lay's solution is not generally accepted. 

Page 127 

"Woodfall : publisher of the Public Advertiser, in which the Ju- 
nius letters appeared, 
the Hebrew prophet : See Jonah iv, 9. 

Page 128 

Old Sarum : The reference is to the great political struggle of 
Macaulay's younger days, for the Reform Bill. Old Sarum was 
one of the " rotten boroughs " abolished by the bill ; Manches- 
ter and Leeds were great manufacturing cities, of recent growth, 
that were given representation. 

George Grenville (1712-1770) : prominent in English politics 
during the reign of George III. He was premier from April, 
1763, to July, 1765 ; he upheld the Stamp Tax, and began the 
prosecution of Wilkes. 

Page 131 

Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dangerfields : Titus Oates, in 
1678, brought forward forged papers to prove the existence of 
a " Popish Plot " to murder Charles II and make England 
a Roman Catholic country. Many innocent persons were con- 
victed on this false testimony. Bedloe and Dangerfield were 
his accomplices. 

Page 132 

the Munny Begum : the queen mother. 

Page 134 

Hastings was the real mover : In the following account of 
the trial of Nuncomar, as in that of the Rohilla war, Macaulay 
is misled by Mill and other partisan writers into very unjust 
misstatements. The attack on Impey was answered in 1846 
by his son (Memoirs of Sir Elijah Impey). It has also been 
thoroughly investigated by J. F. Stephen (The Story of Nunco- 
mar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey, London, 1885), 
who proves that the lawsuit, instead of being commenced " on a 

xviii 



NOTES 

sudden," had been dragging on for three years ; that Hastings 
has not been shown to be the prosecutor; that Impey was not 
alone, but one of four judges, who were unanimous ; that Nun- 
comar's crime was of a kind recognized as such by his own people, 
namely, robbing a friend's widow of half her estate ; that a rea- 
sonable delay (of six weeks) was granted before the execution ; 
and that Impey, when summoned to England to face impeach- 
ment proceedings, was cleared by a vote of 73 to 55. 

Page 135 

as a devout Catholic : The mediaeval church claimed for all 
priests the " benefit of clergy," which meant the right to be 
tried, for any offense, in their own ecclesiastical courts, rather 
than the civil courts of the land. 

Page 137 

the Hoogley : the westernmost channel in the delta of the 
Ganges, the sacred river (" Mother Gunga," in Kipling's story 
of The Bridge Builders). 

Page 138 

Lord Stafford : See note on Titus Gates, page xviii. 

Page 140 

Jones's Persian Grammar : Hastings had encouraged Orien- 
tal studies at Oxford, and in 1774 Johnson sent him Joneses Per- 
sian Grammar^ by a recent Oxford graduate, together with his 
own latest book, the Tour to the Hebrides. 
Lady Macbeth : See her soliloquy, in Macbeth, Act I, sc. V. 
Lord North : Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782. 

Page 141 

so far eastward : The fashionable residence section of London, 
as well as the government offices and the houses of Parliament, 
lie well to the west of the " City," where the great business 
offices are. 

Page 145 

vigor and genius : The reference is to the elder Pitt; see Ma- 
caulay's two essays on the Earl of Chatham. 
Straits of Calpe : the ancient name of Gibraltar, 
the Mahrattas : Those who are interested in learning more of 
the leaders, tribes, and localities mentioned in this paragraph 
and the next, may look them up in the Century Cyclopedia of 
names, or in Hunter's Brief History of the Indian Peoples. Is 
this necessary to get the force of the paragraph ? 

Page 146 

Tamerlane : a corrupted form of Timur, a Tater conqueror of 
the fourteenth century, who conquered Persia, Central Asia, and 
much of India, founding the Empire which still nominally con- 
trolled India in the time of Hastings. 

roi faineant : " do-nothing king," a nickname originally given 
to the Merovingian kings, to whom Macaulay so frequently 
refers. 

bhang : hemp, the leaves of which, when chewed, produce in- 
toxication. 

xix 



NOTES 

Page 147 

war had been proclaimed : In February, 1778, France es- 
poused the cause of the American colonists, and declared war on 
England. 

Lascars : East Indian sailors; the name is also used locally for 
an inferior grade of artillerymen. 

Page 148 

Wandewash (Vandiv^su) : a fortified camp on which depended 
the control of the Carnatic. 

Porto Novo and Pollilore : Macaulay is anticipating, here, 
his account of the defeat of the English by Hyder Ali at Polli- 
lore (p. 158), and their victory under Coote at Porto Novo 
(p. 159). 

but a short time since, etc. : Note the effectiveness of this 
personal reminiscence, undoubtedly based on Macaulay's own 
experience in India or that of his son-in-law. 
salam : the reverential bow, or greeting, among Orientals; it 
signifies " Peace be with you." 

Page 150 

mesne process : used to include all the process issuing be- 
tween the beginning and end of the suit. 

Page 151 

Wat Tyler : leader of the Peasants' Revolt in England, 1381. 
According to tradition, he struck dead a tax-gatherer who in- 
sulted his daughter 

A reign of terror : The charges against the Supreme Court, in 
this and the following paragraphs, have been carefully inves- 
tigated by J. F. Stephen ( The Story of Nuncomar and The 
Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey). He finds that the Court 
claimed jurisdiction not over the territory, but only over the 
servants of the company ; that the acts of oppression Macaulay 
greatly exaggerates. For instance, " the men of the most ven- 
erable dignity, persecuted without a cause " (p. 152), turn out 
to be a single Cazi, arrested for oppressing a widow; the men 
who "shed their blood defending the sacred apartments of the 
women," one Mohammedan who thought his friend's zenana was 
likely to be broken open, and stood in the doorway sword in 
hand ready to defend it. The chief accusation, that of the bribe 
(p. 153), has been answered on the grounds that the Council 
had already won its point, and had nothing to gain by offering a 
bribe; and that on accepting the new office, Impey wrote to the 
Council that he would not use any part of the salary until he had 
been notified by the authorities in England that it was proper to 
do so. 

barrators : in law, men who maliciously or for profit incite 
others to quarrel. 

bailiffs' followers, sponging-houses : A bailiff was a sheriff's 
officer empowered to serve writs and make arrests. In the days 
when men were imprisoned for debt, the bailiff would keep his 
prisoner for twenty-four hours in a private house of detention 

XX 



NOTES 

(" sponging-house "), so that friends might pay the debt and 
charges. 

Page 152 

alguazils : a Spanish term for bailiff or petty officer of the courts, 
for a contempt : for contempt of court. 

Page 154 

Jeffreys : an English judge noted for his brutality and injustice 
in the so-called " Bloody Assizes " ; he was imprisoned, on the 
death of James II, and died in the Tower. 

Page 156 

dervise : Mohammedan friar, sworn to poverty and austere 
living: usually spelled dervish. 

Louis the Eleventh : king of France, 1461-1483. He laid the 
foundation for the absolute monarchy, in France, by destroy- 
ing the power of Burgundy and the other great dukedoms, and 
uniting them to the crown. 

Page 157. 

extreme old age : nearly seventy-eight years. Keene. 
provoked their powerful neighbor's hostility : by repeat- 
edly taking the part of the Nabob of Arcot against Hyder Ali, 
in a series of campaigns ending in the capture of Mahd, a station 
claimed both by Hyder and the French. (See Keene's History 
of India, vol. i, p. 210.) 

Page 158 

the tanks : irrigation reservoirs. 

Page 160 

St. James's : the palace in London which is officially the seat 
of the English court. 

Versailles : during the eighteenth century, the seat of the 
French court. 

Page 161 

Carlovingian empire : the successors of Charlemagne, whose 
empire fell into great disorganization under their hands ; so that 
when Hugh Capet succeeded the last Carlovingian (Louis le 
Faineant) there was no law but the law of the strongest to de- 
fine his relations to the great dukedoms. 

Charles the Tenth : king of France, 1824-30 ; expelled from 
the throne by the " Revolution of July " for tyranny. 

Page 162 

Prince Louis Bonaparte : son of the king of Holland, and 
nephew of Napoleon. Macaulay's reference may be to his at- 
tempt to organize a rebellion among the French soldiers at 
Strasburg (1836) or his unsuccessful invasion of France at Bou- 
logne (1840). 
de facto . . . de jure : in fact ... by legal right. 

Page 166 

Black Town of Calcutta : the part of the town where the 
natives live, as distinguished from the European quarter. 

Page 170 

Lucknow : the capital city of Oude. 

xxi 



NOTES 

Page 172 

two ancient men : The adjective is misleading ; Lyall says 
they were " certainly not infirm effeminate guardians of the 
harem, but the chief advisers and agents of the Begums, men of 
great wealth and influence in the palace, and in command of the 
armed forces." The story that they were tortured has been 
shown to be untrue. 

Page 174 

stripped of that robe : As previously shown, though he was 
summoned to England by his enemies for impeachment pro- 
ceedings, he was not found guilty. 

Page 177 

Louis the Sixteenth : king of France at this period (1754- 

1793). 

the Emperor Joseph : German Emperor, 1765-1790. 

Page 178 

Downing Street : a street in London on which stand many of 

the administration buildings, including the Home Office, the 

Foreign Office, and the East India Office. 

Somerset House : originally, the palace of the Protector 

Somerset, in London; now, in its rebuilt form, used for various 

government offices. 

Marlborough : The reference is to the difficulties the great 

Duke had in managing his Dutch allies in the War of the 

Spanish Succession. 

Wellington : In the Napoleonic wars, Wellington led the 

" Peninsular Campaign " in Spain and Portugal. Mr. Percival 

was Premier of England, and opposed Wellington's policy. 

Page 180 

Pundits : learned Brahmans. 

Page 183 

Carlton House : occupied, at the time this was written, by the 
Prince Regent. 

Palais Royal : a large palace in Paris, built by the great Car- 
dinal Richelieu, presented by him to the king, and occupied, at 
the time this essay was written, by the Duke of Orleans. 

Page 184 

Sir Charles Grandison : the courtly hero of Richardson's 
novel, of the same name (published 1753). 

Page 185 

Horace : Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a Roman poet (65 B. c- 
8 a. d.). 

Otium Divos rogat : The sixteenth ode of the second book of 
Horace begins: — 

otium divos rogat in patent! 
Prensus Aegaeo, eimul atque nubes 
Condidit Innam, neque certa fulgent 
Sidera nautis. 

(For quiet one prays the gods, if caught in the open ^gean, when a cloud has hidden 
the moon, and no fixed stars shine for sailors.) 

xxii 



NOTES 

Page 186 

Grattan, Henry (1746-1820) : an Irish orator of Burke's gen- 
eration. 

Page 187 

the trunk-makers : Waste paper was formerly used for lining 
trunks. 

Page 188 

" that reptile, Mr. Burke " : Abuse was common, on both 
sides; Burke had called Scott a jackal. 

Page 189 

coalition : Fox and Burke, representing the radical and the 
conservative wings of the Whig party, had, with Lord North, 
formed the " Coalition Ministry," which, driven from office in 
1783, was now the Opposition. 

Brooks's : a London political club, at that time frequented by 
Burke and his friends. 

Page 191 

Las Casas : a Dominican of the fifteenth century, famous for 
defending the Indians against the oppression of the Spanish. 
Clarkson : a noted English abolitionist. 

Page 192 

imaum : Mohammedan priest. 

Mecca : the birthplace of Mohammed, and consequently the 
sacred city of the Mohammedans, who always face towards it, 
in praying. 

Page 193 

Beaconsfield : a town twenty-five miles out of London, where 
Burke had his home. 

Lord George Gordon's riots : an uprising in London, 1780, 
against the Roman Catholics ; occasioned by the attempt of 
Lord George Gordon and the Protestant Association, of which 
he was president, to induce Parliament to repeal the Act of 
Toleration. 

Dr. Dodd : a prominent English clergyman, who forged Lord 
Chesterfield's name, and was executed in 1777. The compari- 
son with Nuncomar is very apt. 

Page 195 

pamphlet : campaign document. 

Page 197 

star of the Bath : the Order of the Bath, revived by George 
I in 1725, was, in the times of Hastings, a purely military 
order, limited to the sovereign, a grand master, and thirty-six 
companions. The badge is an eight-pointed golden Maltese 
cross, with various patriotic emblems. 

Privy Council : " At present, it is mainly an honorary body; 
. . . indeed of late years membership in the Council has been 
conferred as a sort of decoration for services in politics, litera- 
ture, science, war, or administration." (Lowell, Government of 
England, vol. i, p. 79.) 
Chancellor of the Exchequer : Pitt, who had just become 

xxiii 



NOTES 

prime minister, retained his position in the Cabinet as Chancellor 
of the Exchequer and Keeper of the Great Seal — as Chancel- 
lor, he was responsible primarily to Parliament ; as Keeper, 
to the kings, at least nominally. 

Page 199 

■works of supererogation: "voluntary works besides, over 
and above, God's Commandments." {Articles of Religion^ Epis- 
copal Prayer Book.) 

Page 200 

■William Wilberforce : the leader of the struggle to abolish 
slavery. Macaulay, loyal to his father, never misses a chance 
to honor the Abolitionists. 

Page 201 

The prorogation : the annual vacation. 

the Lords below the bar : The seats in the House of Com- 
mons are arranged facing each other, on either side of a broad 
aisle. Near the entrance is the seat of the Sergeant-at-Arms ; 
the Bar is an imaginary line which extends from his seat across 
the aisle, and beyond which non-members are not supposed to pass. 

Page 202 

go before the Lords, and to impeach : Until within the last 
hundred years, officers high in public employment could be im- 
peached, or accused, by the Commons, before the Lords, who 
acted as judges. "The evolution of the political responsibility 
of ministers has made impeachment a clumsy and useless de- 
vice for getting rid of an official, while the greater efficiency of 
the criminal law has made it needless for punishing an offender." 
(Lowell, Government of England, vol. i, p. 399.) 

Page 203 

Mr. "Windham : William Windham (1750-1810), a prominent 
Whig statesman and a follower of Burke ; he was one of the 
members charged with the impeachment of Hastings. 

Page 204 

Hall of William Rufus : part of the ancient palace of West- 
minster, begun by William II, in the thirteenth century ; it 
forms the vestibule to the present houses of Parliament, built 
since the trial of Hastings. 

Bacon : Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, a noted philosopher, 
Lord Chancellor of England, was convicted in 1621 of bribery. 
Somers: John, Baron Somers, also a Lord Chancellor, was im- 
peached and acquitted in 1701. 

Strafford : Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, the chief 
adviser of Charles I, was attainted of treason and executed in 
1641. 

Charles : King Charles I, tried for treason Jan. 20-27, 1649, 
and executed. 

Page 205 

Siddons: Mrs. Sarah Kemble. A great tragic actress; famous 

for her acting of Lady Macbeth. 

historian of the Roman empire : Edward Gibbon, whose 

xxiv 



NOTES 

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is one of the great histo- 
ries in the language. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, " the greatest painter," was founder and 
first president of the Royal Academy. 

Parr, Samuel, " the greatest scholar " : a man who, like Macau- 
lay, had a remarkable mind from early boyhood, having learned 
Latin grammar when he was four years old. 
her to "whom, etc. : Mrs. Fitzherbert, privately married to 
the Prince in 1785, could not be acknowledged as his wife be- 
cause she was a Roman Catholic. 

the beautiful mother, etc. : The wife of Sheridan (Miss 
Linley), noted for her beauty, had before her marriage been a 
professional singer. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as Saint 
Cecilia, the patron saint of music. 

Mrs. Montague : a woman of wealth and learning, who made 
her house the centre of a literary circle. Her followers were 
the first to be called blue-stockings. 

ladies -whose lips : an allusion to the beautiful Georgiana, 
Duchess of Devonshire, who is said to have bought a vote for 
Fox, in the Parliamentary election of 1784, by a kiss. 

Page 206 

Mens aequa in arduis : a mind tranquil in troubles. 

Lord Melville : Henry Dundas, who had supported the attack 

on Hastings, was made Viscount Melville in 1802. Appointed 

first lord of the admiralty two years later, he was accused in 

1806 of appropriating public money, but was acquitted. 

full dress : full court dress ; with knee breeches, white wigs, 

and small-swords. 

bag : a wig with the hair brought together behind in a bag, as 

was the fashion of the day. 

Page 207 

till the morning sun shone : The sessions of Parliament for- 
merly began at four in the afternoon, and lasted " until long after 
the chimes announce that a new day has begun." (Escott : Eng- 
land, Its People, Polity, and Pursuits, p. 381.) The rules were 
revised in 1888, so that Parliament should meet at three, and sit 
not later than one a. m., unless a minister moved to continue de- 
bate. (Smith, History of the English Parliament, vol. ii, p. 591.) 

Page 210 

the King's illness : George III became temporarily insane ; 
and a pressing political question was how to provide legally for 
the appointment of ao-egent. 

Page 211 

the States-General of Prance met : This meeting of the 
French popular assembly, after a long period of absolute mon- 
archy, led within a year to the outbreak of the French Revo- 
lution. 

Page 213 

woolsack : the seat of the Lord Chancellor, who presides in 
the House of Lords. 

XXV 



NOTES , 

Page 215 

cuddy : cabin. 
Page 216 

pundits : Brahman men of learning. 

zemindars : landlords, responsible for the collection of local 

taxes. 

apotheosis : raising to the level of a god. 
Page 217 

Anthony Pasquin : a nickname derived from a sharp-tongued 

Roman tailor of the fifteenth century. 
Page 218 

red ribbon : part of the insignia of the Bath. 

Mr. Addington : The " important question " was the granting 

of full civil rights to Roman Catholics. Pitt, who was Prime 

Minister, resigned (1801) because the king refused to grant 

these rights ; Addington, who succeeded him, opposed them. 
Page 219 

Covent Garden : the great London fruit market ; originally 

Convent Garden, the garden of the monks of Westminster 

Abbey. 
Page 220 

Trissotin : a pedantic poet in Moliere's play, Les Femmes 

Savantes. 

Hayleys and Sewards : William Hayley and Anna Seward 

(the " Swan of Lichfield "), writers of indifferent verse in the 

period of Hastings. 
Page 223 

Richelieu : the great French cardinal, chief minister of Louis 

XIII. He greatly increased the power of the French crown, 

both at home and abroad. 

Cosmo : Cosmo de' Medici, a great Florentine banker and 

statesman of the fifteenth century ; noted for his liberality to 

art and literature, and particularly to the Greek scholars exiled 

from Constantinople. 



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M Lowell's Fable for Crities. Paper, .30. 

N Selections from the Writings of Eleven American Authors. Paper, .15. 
O Lowell Leaflets. P«;'-)-, 3(( ; linen, .AO. 
P Holbrook's Hiawatha Primer. Linen, .\o. 

Q Selections from the Writings of Eleven English Authors. Paper, A6. 
M Hawthorne's Twiee-Told Tales. Selected. Paper, .'lo ; linen, .30. 
S Irving's Essays from Sketch Book. Selected. Paper. .3ii ; linen, .40. 
T Literature for the Study of Language. Pajier, :.V -. linen, .40. 
U A Dramatization of The Song of Hiawatha. Paper, .15. 
V Holbrook's Book of Nature Myihs. Linen, .45. 
W Brown's In the Days of Giants, Linen, .50. 
.t Poems for the Study of Language. Paper, .30 ; linen, .40. Also in three parte, 

each, paper, .15. 
y Warner's In the W^ildernes.^. Paper, .20 ; Hneti: .30. 
Z Nine Selected Poems. Paptr, .15 ; lineVf Ao. 



